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Nutrition Articles by Richard Kunin, MD

When President Clinton addressed Congress regarding universal health coverage, he focused on selling points such as security, simplicity, savings, choice, quality and responsibility. These were among the key words that I remember from watching his masterful performance. I was especially attuned to his mention of the twin concepts, of unnecessary service and medical fraud. These concepts have become increasingly important reference points in the past decade as private and public health insurance plans have quickly replaced our previous fee for service and combination public hospital and medical charity system.

A review of the book: Vaccination, Social Violence and Criminality by Harris Coulter. (N Atlantic Books, Berkeley CA  1990)

This book, on the relationship between vaccination and neurological illness, by the historian and homeopathic physician, Harris Coulter, is an expose and a hypothesis: vaccination causes learning disorders, including infantile autism, social violence and criminality.  The author’s hypothesis is that there has been an explosive increase in developmental neurological injuries since 1960 and that this correlates with vaccination campaigns promoted by our Public Health Service.

Perhaps the most insidious distraction that throws a doctor off the diagnosis of vitamin B12 deficiency is the medical teaching that B12 is stored in the adult human liver in an amount sufficient for 5 to 10 years of total deprivation. Obviously not so. I have seen cases in which B12 reserves ran out in less than half that time. This is more likely nowadays when so many people have been avoiding red meat and liver in their diet for years on end. Vegetarian and, of course, fruitarian diets can induce severe B12 deficiency in susceptible people, i.e. those who may have a defect in B12 absorption. Such people are at severe risk of B12 deficiency if they go along with the crowd. Luckily, almost half of all Americans are taking multivitamin and B complex supplements containing B12 at least some of the time. On the other hand, there are still lots of folks who cling to the idealistic notion that they can get all their vitamins and minerals from a "balanced" diet.

I have recently treated over half a dozen patients whose lives have been ruined by vitamin B12 deficiency--a preventable disorder. In every case there was medical error and/or patient ignorance and skepticism leading to permanent harm. It is easy to miss the diagnosis of vitamin B12 deficiency. In the first place, it is a vitamin and our medical education is not only weak on vitamin diagnosis, it often reviles those doctors who treat with vitamins.

When Summertime is fast approaching and the cold season is mostly behind us, there are still enough sore throats and sniffles out there. This article may find you in the mood to take stock of vitamin C and other natural treatments for the common cold-—and even the flu.

Orthomolecular health medicine combines the benefits of nutrition and natural therapies along with an emphasis on laboratory diagnosis, actual measurement of vitamins and minerals in order to truly understand the food factors that conrol the body chemistry. Inspired by Dr. Linus Pauling, who coined the name, ortho-molecular, as an endorsement of the use of natural molecules in maintenance of health and treating disease, the orthomolecular approach to medicine has become the most dynamic grass roots movement in medicine today, but we call it by other names, such as nutrition, vitamin and antioxidant. Antioxidant is the medical buzzword of the 90s and vitamin C is the most important of the antioxdants.

Vitamin K is a take it for granted vitamin, one that is not suspected when we talk of deficiency because it is made for us by normally occurring bacteria in our intestine and is provided normally in dark green vegetables, such as spinach, kale, cabbage and kale. It is also in peas, tomatoes, egg yolk and liver.

Dean Edell's Medical Journal is usually quite informative and accurate. However, when it comes to nutrient supplementation and vitamin therapy his reporting sometimes comes across as mumbo-jumbo: information that sounds good but doesn't make sense. A recent headline reads: "One a Day Won't Add Years to Life."[1] I have grown accustomed to such nutrition research reports that confound the issues. Contradictions are the rule in any controversial field, such as medical nutrition, but by now it is obvious that there are some classic forms of bias also.

The news media and video have been trumpeting anti-vitamin research findings from a study in the New England Journal, dated April 14, 2004. The lead article:1 reported a large-scale research on the effect of vitamin E and beta-carotene on cancer. The conclusions were very direct: "we found no overall reduction in the incidence of lung cancer or in mortality due to this disease among male smokers who received dietary supplementation...The results of this study raise the possibility that these substances may have harmful as well as beneficial effects."

  1. What is Folic Acid?
  2. What is Orthomolecular Medicine?
  3. Zinc Power!
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