Читать книгу Orthomolecular Medicine for Everyone - Abram Hoffer M.D. Ph.D. - Страница 33

Orthomolecular medicine applies the same scientific principles to the use of nutrients as are applied to the use of drugs. It is a hallowed principle of orthodox medicine that only optimum doses of drugs can be used, since too little will be ineffective and too much will be dangerous. Orthodox medicine has not applied this scientific rule to nutrition and to the use of nutrient supplements. It has been lulled by the belief that only very small amounts of nutrients are needed and there is no reason to determine optimum doses. This aging hypothesis has been proven wrong for many years, by many physicians, in thousands of reports. Orthomolecular medicine is a logical extension of the findings that nutrient accessory factors, such as vitamins and minerals, are essential. Food must contain not only carbohydrates, protein, and fat but also these accessory factors. It then follows that when foods are deficient in some of these nutrients, they cannot maintain health.

The medical profession no longer argues against the addition of small amounts of these accessory nutrients to food, such as adding vitamins to white flour, in order to prevent deficiency diseases like beriberi and pellagra. But those are low doses, for the prevention of deficiency diseases only. Orthomolecular medicine is the next logical step—it recognizes that since we are all different, we need varying amounts of these essential nutrients, and even fortified foods will be insufficient for some. These individuals must be given supplements as tablets or pills if they are to remain free of disease or cured of disease. We find it hard, as logical scientists, to believe that these simple concepts can be rejected any longer by the establishment. Orthomolecular nutrition is, in our view, merely good practical medicine that uses the same standard of care as the medical profession thinks it is using for drugs.