Word: vitaminous
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...researchers noted that certain infections (e.g., the minute protozoa which cause sleeping sickness) thrive in a well-fed patient, but languish where some supposedly vital food factor is missing. Rats whose diet was lacking in the vitamin B complex survived sleeping sickness better than better-fed rodents. Ill-fed rats infested with an intestinal parasite were not helped by a pantothenic acid (vitamin) preparation in their diet; instead, the parasites flourished on it. So did the parasites in chickens infected with bird malaria...
Bernarr ("Body Love") Macfadden, determined pursuer of the vitamin-filled life, had no such qualms. He not only celebrated his 81st birthday by making a parachute jump at Dansville, N.Y., but got in a plug for rich, natural foods. He snapped: "You could never jump with a parachute at 81 if you consumed that damned white flour...
...Iron & Vitamins. The Owenses went a step farther. Vitamin A apparently increases the infant's need for vitamin E, but at the same time it decreases the natural supply of E. In addition, iron added to the prematures' diet to prevent anemia destroys vitamin E. While practically nothing is known about the workings of vitamin E in the human body, this was a lead worth following up. The Owenses arranged to get a special preparation, d-1 alpha tocopherol acetate, rich in vitamin E, to be given in a water base...
Twelve babies, all three pounds or less at birth, were given vitamin E, beginning when they were about a week old. None of them has developed R.L.F. Of 17 others studied who did not get vitamin E, three began to show the early symptoms of the disease; so did four others who had weighed between three and four pounds. When vitamin A and iron were stopped, and vitamin E given to these seven, the disease was checked in four cases. This, cautioned Dr. William Owens, is "very encouraging, but not scientifically definite...
...recent paper the Owenses warn: "Vitamin E supplements are of no value if not started...before the baby is six weeks of age, since by that time irreversible retinal changes have occurred." Thus in the case of the Hoffmann twins, it apparently was several months too late for vitamin E treatment when the babies were brought to New York. At Johns Hopkins, every baby under three pounds now gets alpha tocopherol when a week old, and until it passes the 5½-pound mark...