The Catskill Chronicle

By Mort Malkin

Life is complicated. We all have to deal with — and sometimes quarrel with — the telephone company, the electric company, the TV supplier (often), the bank, our employer … It is all small potatoes compared to our relationship with our own body.

The body is made up of 206 bones, many joints, three types of muscle with many of each, a heart with four chambers and four valves, a liver, a pancreas of two different tissues, two kidneys, two lungs, a lineup of endocrine glands, an immune system network, different nervous systems, miles of blood vessels, a system of digestive organs, and a handful of sensory organs and covering of skin. Then, we are a cauldron of many interacting chemicals. The cells of each tissue, of each organ and organ system are organized into many functions and react to the different chemicals the body produces — all guided by the genes of the nuclei of said cells.

This complexity is not how we think of ourselves, except indirectly. We think in terms of hair color (especially if redheaded, or blond), skin color, height & weight, happiness or irritability, being easy going or snappy, being optimistic or pessimistic … The pessimists won’t admit to such a label — they say they are realists.

Many of the individual details of the complexity rule are available. We have Gray’s Anatomy, Best and Taylor’s Physiology, Cecil and Loeb’s Medicine, and a library of books on every medical specialty. Yet many mysteries remain. A little mystery is good — personality requires it, love too. We don’t really want the myth of Atlantis unraveled.

Don’t despair in the face of known unknowns and unknown unknowns. The B & B Trade has reduced the grand carrousel of human structure & function to basic principles. We can even use common sense in our observations and analysis.  Getting down to the nitty gritty, we are made of sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, carbon, oxygen and hydrogen, copper, zinc and iron, iodine, sulfur, chloride, phosphorus, and most of the other elements found in the universe. Our bodies require all of them in larger or smaller amounts except for lead, mercury, radon, and uranium. Nor do we need any or much of those only a chemist would know. All the ones we use in our body chemistry are available from Mother Nature — from the plants that grow in the earth, from the animals who eat the plants that grow in the earth, and from the animals that eat the animals who eat the plants that grow in the earth.

Beside the elements above — we know them as “minerals” — we require about 20 different vitamins to move our body chemistry along. The foods that contain vitamins and minerals also hold phytonutrients — plant chemicals such as lycopene, bioflavonoids, isoflavones, polyphenols, sulforaphanes, and dozens of others. The phytonutrients are derived from plants. We all know of beta carotene as in carrots, cantaloupes, and sweet potatoes. Beta carotene is converted into Vitamin A in our bodies, but we also need alpha and gamma carotene a well as thirty other carotenoids found in yellow and orange colored vegetables. All told, there are over 5,000 phytonutrients that should be added to the 80 or so minerals and about 20 vitamins in a healthy diet.

Then, there are essential fatty acids and essential amino acids. How can we be sure to get all the necessary nutrients in the proper proportions? A respectable health product catalog would offer 1,200 products — vitamins, minerals, herbs, other supplements — many of them different formulations of the same nutrients. Only 1,200 when you need four times that many? The answer is to shop at Mother Nature’s health food store, which you will find is the far aisle to the right as you enter most supermarkets. They call it the produce aisle. Each food there, having grown in the earth, has many different nutrients packed into an often interesting form. Carrots, as noted above, have about 35 carotenoids. Honey has a dozen different sugars, including small amounts of polysaccharides. Besides, it tastes so good. Grass-fed beef has all the essential amino acids, essential fatty acids, the B complex vitamin series, and many minerals. Buffalo (bison) is even better. Fruits, nuts, beans, vegetables, eggs, fish — variety will get you the maximum number of nutrients, as long as you don’t count those with empty calories. No one food is magic — not blue green algae, not barley grass, shiitake mushrooms, flax seeds, extra virgin olive oil … In fact, too much of one nutrient may interfere with the chemistry of another. No supplement should be in mega doses; supplements should be supplementary, food primary.

Your diet should be largely vegetable based and have the largest variety within reason. Organic is best when possible. Here’s to your health — a glass of red wine, just one.