NeuroTalk Support Groups - View Single Post - excerpt from the book -the Vitamin Code -Scurvy was a deadly disease?

lou_lou · 09-01-2008, 05:23 PM

Doctors and scientists back then didn’t know that scurvy
resulted from a lack of vitamin C in the diet. Nor were they aware
that vitamin C was found in citrus fruits such as oranges, lemons, limes,
and grapefruit, and also in tomatoes, potatoes, cabbage, and green
peppers. Meanwhile, scurvy remained a vexing problem on the ocean
blue since sailing ships didn’t have refrigeration to stock perishable
fruits and vegetables in their holds.

The deadly disease also struck those left behind on land. Medieval
adults and children on terra firma succumbed when fresh fruits
and vegetables weren’t available during the winter months—or
times of famine and plague. In the 16th and 17th centuries, more than
one hundred scurvy epidemics ravaged Europe, including Ireland’s
Great Potato Famine. (Potatoes contain vitamin C and were the Irish’s
main source of that vitamin.)

Medical experts at the time thought scurvy was something
contagious but had no idea what brought on the deadly disease.
It wasn’t until 1747 when a Scottish naval surgeon, James Lind,
happened upon a dramatic cure without understanding that vitamin
C was involved. During one experiment, Dr. Lind treated scurvyridden
sailors with lemons and oranges. Overnight, they rebounded
from death’s door. Despite this discovery that something in the
citrus fruits kept seafarers from contracting scurvy, it was still
another 50 years before the British Navy stocked their ship holds
with lime juice. (And now you know why the British are called “limeys”
in period Hollywood films.)

Scurvy is a historical footnote today since supermarkets readily
stock dozens of fruits and vegetables rich in vitamin C the entire year.
Yet even with an abundance of farm-fresh produce available on
store shelves year round, doctors today are seeing patients with
significant vitamin and mineral deficiencies. Baby boomers—
especially older women—lack enough vitamin D and calcium in
their blood to prevent osteoporosis, a disease in which bones
become brittle and threaten to break. Bone loss accelerates after
menopause when estrogen levels decline; we’ve all seen the sad
image of a woman hunched over with a dowager’s hump. In a
review of women with osteoporosis that were hospitalized for hip
fractures, 50 percent were found to have signs of vitamin D
deficiency, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Rickets, another bone-debilitating disease, has made a comeback
in recent years among children. Two hundred years ago, rickets was
so common in poorer parts of Dickensian England that it was called
“The English Disease.” Once scientists discovered in the 20th century
that vitamin D eradicated rickets, the disease became so rare that the
U.S. government stopped keeping statistics on it.

pdf - free book download -
http://www.thevitamincode.com/Home/V...6/Default.aspx