Top Nutrition Doctors: The Giants of Science

I wanted to do a tribute to some of the great scientists of the 20th century. Then I realized that there were too many of them. My second thought was to divide them up into categories. The first category I have picked is nutrition. Other categories will be sequels. Pauling would probably fit into a number of categories, but I feel that he made great contributions to nutrition. However, Pauling built on the work of other people, and these other people should be mentioned also.

William McCormick, M.D. (1880-1968)

"Over twenty years before Pauling, McCormick had already reviewed the nutritional causes of heart disease and noted that four out of five coronary cases in hospital show vitamin C deficiency. McCormick also early proposed vitamin C deficiency as the essential cause of, and effective cure for, numerous communicable illnesses, becoming an early advocate of using vitamin C as an antiviral and an antibiotic." Dr. Andrew W. Saul

Dr. Saul himself may be profiled in the future as a giant of the 21st century.

Albert von Szent-Györgyi, PhD (1893-1986)

"Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen, and thinking what nobody has thought."
- Albert Szent-Györgyi

"Albert Szent-Györgyi, PhD, won the 1937 Nobel Prize for his discovery of vitamin C. In fact, it was he who named the vitamin ascorbic acid and first predicted its use in cancer." Ralph W. Moss, Ph.D., Cancer Decisions Newsletter, July 18, 2004

Roger J. Williams, Ph.D. 1893-1988

"When in doubt, try nutrition first." Williams

"The nutritional microenvironment of our body cells is crucially important to our health, and deficiencies in this enviromnent consititute a major cause of disease." Williams

Linus Pauling, Ph.D. (1901-1994)

Pauling is one of the few American scientists to be honored on a stamp. The stamp depicted his work on sickle cell anemia. Pauling won two unshared Nobel prizes. Szent-Gyorgi won one. After finding out that sickle cell anemia was a molecular disease, he invented the term "orthomolecular" in 1968.

"Professor Pauling as always is ahead of his time. The latest research on vitamin C substantiates his twenty-five years of advocacy and investigation on the benefits of vitamin C." J. Daniel Kanofsky, MD, MPH, Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Emanuel Cheraskin, MD, DMD (1916-2001)

"Man is a food-dependent creature. If you don't feed him, he will die. If you feed him improperly, part of him will die."
- Emanuel Cheraskin

I feel that I have given enough quotes even though these quotes are of great value. Therefore I will list some of his publications as references (2-4).

Humphry Osmond, M.D. (1917-2004)

Osmond started out in the UK, but then moved to Canada. Towards the twilight of his career he moved to the US where he died. Again with Osmond I will give some of his publications as references. All of the scientists I have reviewed here were prolific writers.

Carl C. Pfeiffer, M.D., Ph.D. (1908-1988)

I decided to honor Pfeiffer instead of Hoffer because I have already written a great deal about Hoffer and have given numerous references to his books and articles. There have been many great contributors to nutrition, and there is not room to review them all in one article. Perhaps in the future I will honor others. Pfeiffer, like Hoffer and Osmond, was a psychiatrist. Pfeiffer was taking an interest in amino acids before his death. Amino acids had been neglected by most other psychiatrists.

Prior to his work on amino acids, Pfeiffer had been interested in minerals. Refs. 9-12 are some of his books.

Conclusions

I once attended a lecture by Hoffer in Arlington, MA at a church. It was sponsored by the Boston Orthomolecular Society. Richard Wurtman is a MIT scientist who has advocated for nutrition affecting the brain. He is an MD. His wife, Dr. Judith Wurtman, is also a nutrition researcher.

Perhaps the first book on nutrition I read was Let's Get Well by Adelle Davis. Some regarded her as a quack because she felt that nutrition could be used to prevent cancer. I feel that she was a prophet. Soon Linus Pauling also came to this point of view. Pauling died of cancer, but he lived to the age of 93. He was still doing research in his nineties. He followed his own recommendations and took large doses of vitamin C every day with no ill after effects.

If my readers like this post, I could do more giants of science tributes. Next time I might honor famous psychiatrists or famous neuropathologists. Regarding nutrition there is an interesting two volume set called "The Gale Encyclopedia of Diets". This mentions many different nutrition scientists. Atkins, the famous diet doctor, died grossly overweight. His death was not due to his bulk, however. Dr. Tarnover, another famous diet doctor, was murdered by his jilted girlfriend Jean Harris. Tarnover advocated a high protein diet for losing weight.

References

1. Albert Szent-Györgyi and Vitamin C, by Nigel Bunce and Jim Hunt, University of Guelph, 1987.

2. Cheraskin, E. (2000) Detoxification: a must for the new millenium. Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine 15: #2, 60-62, Second Quarter.

3. Cheraskin, E. (1999) Letter to the Editor: Essential hypertension: a naturopath's point of view. Journal of Advancement in Medicine 12: #1, 69-71, Spring.

4. Cheraskin, E. (1999) Conventional and unconventional medical practice. Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine 14: #2, 78-82, Second Quarter.

5. Osmond, H & Smythies, J (1952) Schizophrenia: a new approach. Journal of Mental Science. 98(411):309-315, April.

6. Hoffer A, Osmond H & Smythies J (1954) Schizophrenia: a new approach. II. Results of a year's research. J Ment Science 100(418):29-45.

7. Hoffer A & Osmond H (1955) Schizophrenia - an autonomic disease. Presented to Soc Biol Psychiatry, Chicago, June. J Nerv & Ment Dis 122: 448-452.

8. Osmond H. (1957) A review of the clinical effects of psychotomimetic Agents. Ann N.Y. Acad Sci, 66:418-434. March 14.

9. Pfeiffer, Carl C. (1987) Nutrition and Mental Illness: An Orthomolecular Approach to Balancing Body Chemistry. ISBN 0-89281-226-5 Healing Arts Press, One Park Street, Rochester, Vermont 05767, The Princeton Brain Bio Center, 862 Route 518, Skillman, NJ 08558, Tel. 609-924-8607.

10. Braverman, ER and Pfeiffer, Carl C (1987) The Healing Nutrients. Keats Publishing Inc, New Canaan, Connecticut.

11. Pfeiffer, Carl C. (1978) Dr. Carl C. Pfeiffer's Updated Fact/Book on Zinc and Other Micro-Nutrients. Keats Publishing, Inc, New Haven, Connecticut. ISBN-10: 0879831693; ISBN-13: 978-0879831691.

12. Pfeiffer, Carl C. et al (1975) Mental and Elemental Nutrients, A Physician's Guide to Nutrition and Health Care. Keats Publishing, Inc, New Haven, Connecticut.