Herbalism and clinical nutrition

by Paul Bergner

Medical Herbalism 07-31-97 9(2): 4-5

This quarter’s editorial will seek to solve three enigmatic riddles of the history of medicine in the U.S. in the twentieth century.

Why were heart attacks rare n the U.S. in 1900, and the leading cause of death by the late 1940s?

Why was the flu pandemic of 1916-1918 more deadly to the younger population than it was to the elderly, reversing the general pattern of mortality in influenza?

Why did the Eclectic and homeopathic medical professions die out after the first decades of this century while the naturopathic medical profession has survived?

These seemingly unrelated phenomena may be linked by a common factor: the dietary changes in the U.S. after the turn of the century.

A heart attack was so rare in 1900 that most physicians never saw one in their practice. For the last fifty years, heart attacks have been the leading cause of death in the U.S. The cause of the heart attack has been a moving target ever since it began to appear, and has not yet been conclusively identified. Despite the publicity given to links between a high fat diet, high blood cholesterol, smoking, diabetes, and hypertension, these are only statistical risk factors, and not even strong ones at that. Fully half of individuals suffering heart attacks have none of these risk factors. Another possible explanation is the industrialization of the food supply at the turn of the century. Three kinds of food were made universally available that had formerly been only occasional treats, if available at all: sugar, processed white flour, and refined vegetable oils and margarine. All of these have been linked with heart attacks.

http://medherb.com/Therapeutics/Gene...on.htm#_VPID_4
more history of medicine
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/if...u_knew_04.html