Why Are We Deficient In The Minerals We Need?
This is a brief summary of Chapter 2 "Modern Day Health Solutions That Are Anything But" in Morley Robbins' book Cure Your Fatigue. I suggest getting this book if you want to go deep into the history, science and practical solutions of his Root Cause Protocol.
"It's often said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. That sentiment is certainly apt when we consider some of the mainstream lifestyle and medical recommendations from the 20th century that were purportedly dispensed to improve our well-being, but on the contrary, proved to be misguided, misleading and detrimental to our health. Broadly speaking, these developments occurred in three key areas: agriculture, gastronomy (the American diet), and medicine. Each has had the detrimental effect of creating our current "Crisis of Mineral Deficiency" by reducing the presence of key minerals, especially copper and magnesium, in our environment, and thus our physiology, while simultaneously increasing iron in our food environment, and subsequently in our bodies' tissues." - Morely Robbins, Cure Your Fatigue.
Agriculture
At the beginning of the 20th century, America's farmland was rich in minerals and microbes essential for providing the overall nutrient content of grains, fruits, vegetables and livestock that Americans produce. Most farms were locally owned and the crops they produced were sold to their local communities.
Soon after, we saw the advent of large commercial farms. These "factory farms", coupled with a growing railway system and refrigeration technology, could produce food cheaply and quickly, then ship it inexpensively across long distances. This trend may have been well-intentioned, but it created a number of problems:
- Natural fertilizers were replaced with man-made chemical fertilizers, pesticides and other unnatural agents in order to boost production. These chemicals had a negative impact on soil microbes that are key to nutrient uptake into plants.
- These farms often stopped rotating crops, so the soil was no longer replenished by different types of crops.
- The use of NPK (nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium) based fertilizers has the effect of blocking the uptake of copper by food crops.
- Widespread use of antibiotics has a devastating effect on the mineral status of soil and crops, especially in regard to magnesium and copper.
- Food is often picked before it is ripe, so it can be shipped long distances without spoiling. However, it is during the ripening process on the plant that most of the nutrients from the soil are absorbed by the plant and incorporated into our whole foods.
- Perhaps the most serious danger in modern agriculture is the weed-killer "RoundUp®", known chemically as glyphosate. Glyphosate is a true poison that chelates (removes) all minerals from the soil. Modern crops, especially wheat, are drenched in glyphosate. In the body, glyphosate harms the ability to make the key copper protein ceruloplasmin, and can cause celiac disease and other gastrointestinal disorders normally attributed to gluten sensitivity, meaning these issues may be caused by glyphosate and not by gluten.
Diet
As farming methods began to deteriorate, similar trends began to cross over into the American diet.
- Beginning in the 1920s, food processing methods were introduced to "refine" food. These so-called refinements stripped out most, if not all, of the nutrients the foods contained.
- Refined sugars were added to processed foods as an inducement to get people to eat them. 73% of the products in a common grocery store today contain some form of sugar. These sugars, including high fructose corn syrup and many artificial sweeteners, block the ability of the body to absorb copper and magnesium.
- Beginning in 1941, inorganic iron filings were added to our food system via enriched wheat flour and grain-based products, ostensibly to protect against "iron-deficiency anemia", a condition that, as Marley Robbins explains in his book, does not actually exist. Instead of protecting us, iron is the master pro-oxidant element on earth and the principal element behind what is called oxidative stress, which can lead to many diseases such as heart disease, arthritis and diabetes.
- Beginning in 1955, the medical profession started to recommend that people follow a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet, under the assumption that cholesterol was a risk factor for disease, especially heart attacks, strokes and other cardiovascular conditions. In reality, cholesterol is an extremely important element in the body and over 1,000 milligrams is produced in the liver every day - a far greater amount than one could get from food. If, for some reason, too little cholesterol is in the diet, the liver will actually increase the amount it produces to make sure there is enough! Cholesterol is a natural anti-inflammatory agent and an anti-oxidant, with the ability to capture and store free radical oxygen molecules.
Besides this, a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet causes a significant reduction in the intake of retinol, which is the only true form of vitamin A. Retinol is essential for body growth, immune function, vision and reproductive health. It is also an important factor in the production of many copper-based enzymes. Recent nutritional understanding is now encouraging eating more fat, due to its many benefits.
Modern Medicine
"There is a total lack of awareness and understanding within the medical community regarding minerals and the essential roles they play. This is why I affectionately refer to doctors (think MDs) as "M.ineral D.enialists." I am hopeful that this simple book can be viewed as an invitation for doctors - of all faiths and persuasions - to learn aspects of metabolism and energy production that they simply were not taught about in their clinical training.
"In my opinion, the interplay between copper, ceruloplasmin, iron, magnesium and oxygen, as well as the countless downstream metabolic processes they regulate, are among the most important keys to health. They comprise the foundation to our immune system and metabolism. Doctors may talk about the dangers of oxidative stress, but they lack the awareness of what causes it, and therefore are not fully equipped to prevent or to reverse it. Hopefully, this book will invite dialogue and inspire further research and understanding." - Morley Robbins, Cure For Fatigue
At the dawn of the 20th century, at least 25 percent of all health care providers in the U.S. practiced some form of medicine that emphasized the importance of diet and nutrition as primary preventive and therapeutic treatments. At the same time, however, medical schools had no uniform standards of eduction.
Recognizing this fact, members of the Carnegie Foundation, named after its founder Andrew Carnegie, decided that improving medical education should be a primary goal of its philanthropic mission. The result was a nationwide "reformation" of medical schools. Many good things came from this but, unfortunately, a new medical model was promoted that led to the narrow symptom-centered drug-based treatment regimens practiced by doctors today. Education on diet and nutrition is almost non-existent in modern medical schools.
Many drugs have devastating effects on mineral status in the human body. Some block mineral uptake, some strip minerals from the body, and some bring more iron into the body, adding to the oxidation and inflammation of cells.
The result is a medical system that has very little understanding of the importance of minerals in the metabolism, growth and healing in the human body. This is combined with a reliance on pharmaceuticals that can actively prevent essential minerals like copper and magnesium from functioning properly, or may remove them from the body altogether.
"It's no wonder that we as a nation, and as a world population for that matter, are excessively sick and exceedingly tired, and that modern medicine has such an incomplete understanding of the KEY mineral/metal dynamics, especially when it comes to our health and energy levels." - Morley Robbins - Cure For Fatigue
