Essential nutrients are so named for a reason. They comprise a group of chemicals that are required to maintain life, but which cannot be manufactured endogenously. In humans, essential nutrients fall into a number of categories including amino acids, organic compounds we call vitamins, inorganic compounds we call minerals, as well as fatty acids. In addition, social interaction, sunlight, water and oxygen are also required for the maintenance of human life. Because we cannot produce essential nutrients they must be derived from our diets in the correct ratios and the correct levels for metabolic function. A deficiency of any of the essential nutrients leads to a deficiency disease and death, without exception. Most Westerners overlook the importance of diet in health and pay little attention to assuring correct intakes of the essential nutrients. The erroneous assumption that poor quality Western food can supply all the nutrients required for optimal health is a primary driver of the Western lifestyle diseases we see around us.
Many studies have highlighted the poor dietary practices followed by Westerners by supplementing individual diets with single isolated essential nutrients. The effects of such trials are often striking and show the high prevalence of borderline subclinical deficiency diseases (insufficiencies) in the Western population as a whole. In particular, the elderly are a high risk group for such subclinical deficient states, largely as a result of poor absorption of nutrients in combination with poor quality diets, especially in those who are institutionalised. The benefits of even single nutrient supplementation programmes in such groups has been extensively reported in the nutritional literature, with such programmes often having dramatic effects on certain markers of health. Such effects were demonstrated in a study that investigated the effects of supplementing elderly institutionalised patients with 1 gram per day of vitamin C for two months1. Tests showed that all the patients in this study had initially low level of vitamin C.
Following the two month trial period a number of biochemical markers had improved in the subject administered the vitamin C, in comparison to a control group receiving a placebo. Plasma vitamin C increased significantly (from 0.14 to 1.37 mg/mL) in those taking the vitamin C tablets and with this was seen a rise in leukocyte numbers (from 9.7 to 37.0 μg per 10,000 cells). In addition, the body weights of the vitamin C group increased by 0.41 kg, whilst the body weights of the control group decreased. As body weight is associated with mortality in the elderly, this suggests that the risk of mortality had decreased in the vitamin C group compared to the placebo group. Plasma proteins (albumin and prealbumin) also increased in the vitamin C group indicating improvements in health. The vitamin C group also had beneficial effects against haemorrhaging, that were not seen in the placebo group. Therefore even single nutrient supplements for relatively short periods appear to be effective in institutionalise elderly.
Dr Robert Barrington’s Nutritional Recommendation: These results are interesting because they highlight the deficient state of many individuals, despite access to supposed advanced medical care and freely available food. In comparison to those living at home, the institutionalised patients had poorer vitamin C status. An earlier study found that supplements of vitamin C improved both mood and mobility in similar patients, and this may have facilitated appetite improvements that explains their increases in body weight and serum proteins. The subjects in this study likely benefited so much from the vitamin C because their diets were of such low quality, as indicated by low serum vitamin C levels. It is therefore highly likely that other essential nutrients were also deficient. Of course, such supplements would not show such beneficial effects if the diets of the individuals were of high quality. Similar results would likely be seen in the population as a whole, although perhaps not to such a great magnitude.
RdB
