University Daily Kansan / Tuesday, April 12, 1988
TuesdayForum
5
Health food has many legitimate benefits
T The article on page 11 in the March 24 issue of the Kansas contained some inaccuracies regarding health food stores and their products. The tone of the article typifies the health food industry's ongoing battle with the American Dietetic Association.
As co-manager of the Community Mercantile Cooperative, I have watched the verbal and legal battle for years. An ADA proposal before the Kansas lawmakers in Topeka as originally drafted would have made it a crime in Kansas for anyone but a registered dietitian to dispense nutritional advice about any food, diet or supplement. Doctors and nurses were exempted. This proposal brought such an uproar of public opinion from consumers, chiropractors, diet centers, health food stores, vegetarians, Jews and other religious groups with special diets that the legislators felt the political heat in and an amended version exempted nearly everyone. This bill is still in Senate committee. The ADA has tried for years to enact legislation in various states so it could have a virtual monopoly on information about nutrition.
To imply, as Ann Kohl, registered dietitian at Watkins Hospital, has, that "there is absolutely no scientific foundation for the claims that are made by health food store owners or managers about the products they are selling" suggests to me she hasn't done her homework.
A recent article published by the National Cancer Institute talks about the value of a high-fiber diet in preventing colon cancer. An article in the New England Journal of Medicine talks about fish oils high in E.P.A. to help in reducing cholesterol. High-fiber diets and E.P.A. supplements were pioneered in the health food industry. Linus Pauling, two-time Nobel Prize winner, has done studies and written books about the health benefits of vitamin C.
Roger J. Williams, the first biochemist elected president of the American Chemical Society, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a pioneer in the field of vitamin research, describes in his book, "Nutrition Against Disease," an article
Steve Wilson
Guest Columnist
written in Consumer Reports 1970:
"The article, supposedly written by informed experts, dismissed the whole subject of vitamin pills with an air of 'healthy people who eat balanced diets don't need them.' This statement is both literally true and misleading at the same time. If most people were healthy, there should be no general concern about vitamins or nutrition. I take it for granted that people who are perfectly healthy in life and have a good prospect of maintaining their good health consume balanced diets. It happens, however, that among many hundreds of friends and acquaintances, I can hardly think of any who might remotely qualify as being 'perfectly healthy.'"
Williams later describes as meaningless the FDA's assertion that vitamins and minerals are supplied in many countries by commonly available foods."
Certainly there are differing opinions from various experts in the field, but to assert as Kohl does that there is no scientific evidence for vitamin supplementation is to ignore the whole body of scientific evidence available, and it simply shows which side of the fence she is on.
Also, Kohl's assertion, "I don't think there are any products that have health benefits above and beyond the comparable product you could buy at a grocery store," fails to hold water. The obvious advantage of being able to buy organic fruits and vegetables that haven't been sprayed with herbicides and pesticides not only makes them safer for the consumer but also safer for the environment.
A recent article in the Kansas City Star, Oct. 20, 1987, talks about new studies by the National Cancer Institute that "threaten to transform part of the wheat belt into a cancer belt." The studies implicate the high use of pesticides and herbicides such as
2. 4-D and DDT with such health problems as bone marrow damage, tumors, blood disorders and other chronic ailments. The study, published in June, 1867, describes two distinct problems for Kansas. First, white males in the southeastern part of the state suffer from one of the highest death rates in the nation from non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. The National Cancer Institute estimates 175 deaths in Kansas this year from this disease. Second, overall cancer deaths for white males in Kansas are increasing about 7 percent every five years, nearly twice the national average.
The Kansas lawmakers are currently working on a bill that would define organic farming and provide producers of such crops registration and later certification. The Community Mercantile is the only store in Lawrence selling organic products.
The comments made by Peter Byers of the University of Kansas Medical Center are somewhat more balanced. However, his comment "We have had people in the clinic who looked like they have had liver disease, but it was toxic amounts of vitamins or minerals and herbal preparations that they had been taking" is sensationalistic. The incidence toxicity associated with vitamins is them small, and much less common than prescription drug overdose, over the counter medication overdose and alcohol abuse, and represents considerably less toxicity to the consumer.
Also, Byers' comments about selenium are only partially correct. His assertion that there is a "rather narrow margin of safety between deficiency and toxicity" is misleading. No recommended daily allowance for selenium has been established; however, the range of therapeutic dosage is from 50-500 MCG. The National Cancer Institute recommends 200 MCG a day to prevent cancer. Byers makes a good point, that too much selenium can have serious health hazards; however, most selenium supplements range in potency from 50-200 MCG. Therefore, a dosage on the high end of the scale (500 MCG for example) would require the ingestion of 2.5 to 10 tablets of selenium — hardly a
narrow range and probably a dosage no reasonable person would take.
Bayers also makes the comment that selenium deficiency in this country is extremely rare. However, in an April 27, 1973, news release on selenium, the FDA states that "levels in animal feed vary widely depending on the soil in which the crops were grown." The FDA news release went on to estimate that about "70 percent of the domestic corn and soybeans do not contain adequate selenium." The news release further pointed out that "such a deficiency can lead to decreased growth, disease, and
death of such animals feeding on such crops." In fact, selenium deficiency is quite common in the United States, with low levels in 70 percent of our soils.
In my industry, there are always some people who are uninformed, out for a buck and will say anything to make a sale. However, the majority of health food stores are reputable and honest with informed people and have something special to offer the consumer. At the Community Mercantile, we never try to "hard-sell" people and Byers' advice to "get in and quickly" (so you don't end up
with a sack full of useless items) tells me he has never been in our store. Our customers include doctors, nurses, pharmacists, lawyers, professors, students, athletes, construction workers, waitresses and everyone. If we had been foisting off useless products and information, these people would not be coming back again and again, as they have for 14 years, and we wouldn't be known as "the local health food store" . . . and we think justifiably so.
Steve Wilson is manager of Community Mercantile, Inc.
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