Without alarming you unduly, allow me to cite a few pertinent facts and figures on the unholy relationship between devitalized grains and the increase in certain fatal diseases. Dr. Haven Emerson of Columbia University points out that since grains were first milled (that is, since the protein, minerals and vitamins were taken out of the wheat) diabetes has increased 1150 per cent! Corresponding increases have also been noted in heart disease, kidney disease and cancer. High blood pressure has increased 250 per cent during the past ten years. Anemia and appendicitis have also increased at an appalling rate. These are diseases wholly unknown among primitive peoples who use only unmilled grains rich in all the vitamins of the B-complex group. Even among the Latter Day Saints (Mormons) of our own country, who are taught to adhere to sound, health-promoting diets, there are far fewer deaths from these serious deficiency diseases than among a similar group of persons elsewhere in the country as a whole. There is good scientific cause for believing that too much starch in the diet helps build up those unwanted deposits of cholesterol in the arteries, causing them to harden and become brittle to the point
where a rupture brings on a fatal heart attack, or a brain hemorrhage.
Heavy starch-eaters are also more susceptible to sinus and respiratory infections than are those who limit their carbohydrate intake to the sugars and starches found in natural foods (fruits, vegetables, milk and whole rains) and build their meals around high proteins. Many people who attend my lectures have told me that all symptoms of their asthma disappeared after they had eliminated white sugar from their diets, substituting honey and fruit juices as sweeteners. One woman, whose life had been made miserable for years by one sinus attack after another, experienced complete relief from this painful infection after she eliminated all artificial carbohydrates from her diet. You couldn´t bribe this woman to resume eating white bread, white rice, macaroni or white sugar. She also noticed that, since avoiding white bread, her long-standing affliction of heartburn after a meal had disappeared.
Constipation, a common symptom of digestive disorders, is another universal ailment that can be traced directly to high-starch food habits. The same holds true for gas in the intestines and belching, which are uncomfortable manifestations of undigested starches fermenting in the digestive tract. Cancer, a dread word at any age and especially after forty, has been linked quite definitely to over consumption of carbohydrates. Chronic irritations and other causes of cancer, have less chance of stirring up riotous malignancies if the body is not oversupplied with carbohydrate foods. This was proved several years ago at the McArdle Memorial laboratory for Cancer Research, University of Wisconsin, and at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago. A yellow chemical called benzpyrene, known to cause skin cancer was tested on 100 laboratory animals. Seventy-two of these developed cancer within six months-and these 72 were those that deliberately had been given 40 per cent more calories (in starch foods) than were needed for good nutrition. The diets given the other animals, that proved highly resistant to cancer, contained a full quota of protein foods, yet totaled little more than half as many calories as were contained in the high-starch diets given the animals developing cancer. The same experiment was repeated many times-and always with the same results: The group of animals receiving less carbohydrates developed the fewest number of cancers.
This does not mean, however, that any person with cancer can cure himself by cutting down on the amount of high-starch items in his diet. Unfortunately it doesn´t work that way as yet. But the message to be derived from this research is that limiting the amount of high-starch foods in the diet is possible insurance against developing cancer. Here is the scientific reasoning behind the results of this cancer research: Biologists have good reason to believe that cancer begins with the formation of a single cell that is abnormal because it lacks normal proteins, or because of a disturbance in hormone balance, plus other reasons not yet fully explored. During the so-called ´critical´ period of cancer development (this immediately precedes the stage at which the disease can be detected by either the patient or the doctor), the cancerous cells must compete with normal body cells for nourishment. If there is only enough food for the normal cells, then the cancer cells will be starved out.
This is true because, at the start of the critical period, the cancerous cells have not yet had time to establish their own direct blood supply, as they do during the final or progressive period. Since they cannot receive food directly from their own blood supply, cancerous cells must compete with healthy cells for the nourishment present in fluids brought to the tissues by the bloodstream. At this stage of cancer, the normal cells have a better chance of survival because they are still the more vigorous cells. Growth requirements for abnormal, or cancerous, cells are quite different from those of healthy cells. For this reason, whatever nourishment is present will be taken up at once by the normal body cells, leaving the cancerous cells either to starve because there is no surplus nourishment for themor to thrive because more food was taken in by the body than was needed.
If there is no surplus nourishment, cancerous cells must starve and die. But if there is a superabundance of body sugars in the tissue fluids, derived from too much starch in the diet, cancerous cells are assured all the nourishment they require to make them grow and thrive. And thus the abnormal growth progresses to its third, and final, stage. Cancer is known to be more prevalent among people whose diets are high in carbohydrates. Among the Navajo and Hopi Indians of our Southwest, only 36 cases of cancer were found in 30,000 patients admitted to hospitals. Yet among the same number of white persons, approximately 1,800 cases of cancer would have been discovered. Why should these Indians have such strong resistance to cancer? Diet seems to be the answer. These tribes do not overeat. In fact, their diet would seem extremely inadequate to us. Moreover, the Navajo and the Hopi Indians are protein-eaters, consuming very little carbohydrate. Draw your own conclusions. I have singled out these ailments and diseases-heart trouble, hardening of the arteries, respiratory infections, constipation, indigestion and cancer-because they are commonly associated with the past-forty group. I don´t need to emphasize that all these diseases and ailments are destroyers and killers in one way or another. Even those not commonly thought of as ´fatal´ can destroy your hold on youth, cutting down your physical vitality and mental alertness almost to the vanishing point.
It would be tragic enough if you had to depend on white breads, refined sugar, macaroni, rice and rich desserts to keep from starving. In that case, no one could censure you for filling your stomach with these potentially dangerous foods. But to deliberately destroy your youth and shorten your life because of an acquired starch-and-sugar habit, after being told all the facts about these saboteur foods, is one way of proving that you want to grow old prematurely and don´t care what happens to your precious body. Are the taste pleasures you derive from these high-starch foods worth the heavy cost to you in health and good looks? Therefore, think over your eating habits.