Pritikin—College dropout who could’ve won the Nobel Prize

Posted on 01/30/2013 by J. Morris Hicks

So what’s the story about the amazing Nathan Pritikin?

Nathan Pritikin, A very special American

Nathan Pritikin, A very special American

In a People Magazine article shortly after his premature death in 1985, one of his staff described the great man thusly: “Nathan was a great researcher, a genius who was able to see clearly through mazes of information and come to conclusions that others overlooked.” In short, he was a “big picture” guy who had little patience with the commercially driven medical establishment that had no interest in embracing the powerful truth about plant-based nutrition.

Why am I writing about him now? I have heard about the famous Pritikin Diet for many years but, until last week, had never heard Mr. Pritikin speak. One of my blog reading friends (Bill Kleinbauer) was kind enough to send me a video of him being interviewed by Dr. John McDougall back in 1982. Pritikin looked like a very young man in the video, he was 67 in 1982—and young Dr. McDougall looked almost like a teenager. Since watching that video, I have done a little more research and would like to share that with you in this blog.

As a first, I want to share a brief introduction with you—a 90-second video about Pritikin that was recently published by Dr. Michael Greger. This video provides you with the “big picture” and the next video enables you to sort of “get to know” this amazing man.

The next video below is about 55 minutes and features a very relaxed format in which Pritikin does about 95% of the talking as he answers a series of questions about diet, health, and disease. Pritikin talks casually about how he was diagnosed with heart disease at age 40 with a total cholesterol reading of nearly 300. He talks about how he used his own body as somewhat of a lab and, using a low-fat vegetarian diet, was able to reduce his cholesterol down to about 100.

George McGovern, another visionary American who was a friend and follower of Nathan Pritikin

George McGovern, another visionary American who was a friend and follower of Nathan Pritikin

When he re-introduced animal protein into his diet, the cholesterol went back up, so he eliminated it again—bringing his cholesterol back down to 100. Then he experimented by adding small amounts of protein for a period of time and measuring exactly what happened.

He ultimately discovered a “sweet spot” of sorts where he could eat some animal protein (to get his B12) without raising his cholesterol at all. Then he jokingly remarks, “but by then, I had lost the taste for animal foods, anyway.”

I liken his “self-taught” method in the field of medicine to what I have been doing regarding the “big picture” of our food choices and the staggering impact on so many global issues—beginning with our own health. It’s truly amazing how much you can learn about any topic—if you’re simply willing to invest the requisite 10,000 hours.

Sadly, Pritikin suffered a premature death at the age of 69 in 1985, after his radiation-induced leukemia came out of a lengthy remission. According to Wikipedia, he ultimately took his own life rather than endure the horrible last days of his cancer. Ironically, he committed suicide on my 4oth birthday.

A casual hour with Nathan Pritikin and Dr. John McDougall

In this video, he seemed to think that we were on the verge of transforming the way we eat and eliminating the many food-borne diseases that cause so much pain, suffering, costs and deaths in the western world. Sadly, it doesn’t seem like things have changed much since 1982. The Federal government is still our biggest “drug pusher” and our dietary guidelines are still commercially driven.

After watching the video, I pulled up the following information on Wikipedia:

Nathan Pritikin (August 29, 1915 – February 21, 1985) was an American nutritionist and longevity research pioneer. Pritikin was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. He attended the University of Chicago from 1933 to 1935 but did not achieve a degree. He became an inventor in the fields of chemistry, physics, and electronics in Chicago and Santa Barbara, California.[1]

Diagnosed with heart disease in the 1950s, he engaged in a low-fat diet that was high in unrefined carbohydrates along with a moderate aerobic exercise regime.[2][3] His dietary and exercise regime became known as “The Pritikin Program for Diet and Exercise” in a book co-authored by science writer Patrick M. McGrady, Jr., which stayed on the New York Times Bestseller List for 52 weeks and sold millions of copies.

When his own disease improved substantially, he established the Pritikin Longevity Center in 1976 and served as its director. Now called the Pritikin Longevity Center & Spa, it offers controlled diet, counseling in lifestyle change and exercise in a resort/spa-type setting. Pritikin also served as chairman of the Pritikin Research Foundation.

In the early 1980s, he began to suffer severe pain and complications related to his decades-long fight with leukemia, which had been in remission for 27 years.[4][5] He committed suicide on February 21, 1985.[6]

Shortly after his death, there was an article about him in People Magazine that featured a quote by another dietary visionary.  “He was always in charge of his life. It rather followed he’d want to be in charge of his death,” says friend and follower Senator George McGovern. “Suicide is never a pleasant course, but in Nathan’s case ,once he felt life wasn’t worth living, that would be it.” The article (see link below) is a good read and provides an interesting look into the background of this special individual.

Dr. William Castelli, one of the medical "establishment" leaders who had great respect for Nathan Pritikin

Dr. William Castelli, one of the medical “establishment” leaders who had great respect for Nathan Pritikin

The article pointed out that Dr. William Castelli (Director of the Framingham Study) was one of few in the medical profession that gave Mr. Pritikin the credit that he deserved, saying that he was definitely “barking up the right tree.” Some people believed that had he lived, he would have been the first layman to win a Nobel Prize in Medicine—without ever earning a college degree in anything. A little Pritikin background from the People article:

The son of a Chicago sign salesman, Pritikin was already a millionaire before he tackled nutrition. Forced during the Depression to drop out of the University of Chicago, he became a free-lance inventor, developing a host of patents in physics, chemistry and electrical engineering for such giants as Bendix and Honeywell. “Nathan was a great researcher, a genius who was able to see clearly through mazes of information and come to conclusions that others overlooked,” says Rosenthal. Indeed, after the autopsy, Dr. Steven Inkeles of the Pritikin Center said the medical examiner was astounded at the superb condition of Pritikin’s heart. “He had the arteries,” says Inkeles, “of a preadolescent boy.” Even in death, Pritikin showed there is a better way to live.

Dr. Campbell's new book

Dr. Campbell’s new book

The Bottom Line. The visionary leaders of his day, like Senator George McGovern and Dr. William Castelli knew that Nathan Pritikin was on the right track back in the early 80’s. Yet today, his visionary truths about nutrition are still virtually unknown by most people—including the medical and nutritional “experts.”

As Dr. T. Colin Campbell sums it up in the Introduction to his new book WHOLE (to be released on May 7, 2013), the “establishment” is no closer to accepting the truth about nutrition than it was at the time of Pritikin’s death, 28 years ago:

If you want to live free of cancer, heart disease, and diabetes for your entire life, that power is in your hands (and your knife and fork). But, sadly, medical schools, hospitals, and government health agencies continue to treat nutrition as if it plays only a minor role in health.

Consecutive daily blogs

Consecutive daily blogs

But there is some good news to report—and you can read all about it in my blog about the Perfect Storm for Fixing Healthcare. (See first link below) The stars are lining up like they never have before and with enough people joining the grassroots revolution, we should be able to get some good traction in the next five or ten years. Nothing is more important! As Dr. Campbell says in his new book, “No less than our future as a species hangs in the balance.”

Handy 4-piece take-charge-of-your-health kit—from Amazon.com

Want to find out how healthy your family is eating? Take our free 4Leaf Diagnostic Survey. It takes less than five minutes and you can score it yourself. After taking the survey, please give me your feedback as it will be helpful in the development of our future 4Leaf app for smartphones. Send feedback to jmorrishicks@me.com

International. We’re now reaching people in over 100 countries. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter or get daily blog notices by “following” us in the top of the right-hand column. For occasional updates, join our periodic mailing list.

To order more of my favorite books—visit our online BookStore now

J. Morris Hicks, working daily to promote health, hope and harmony on planet Earth.

For help in your own quest to take charge of your health, you might find some useful information at our 4Leaf page or some great recipes at Lisa’s 4Leaf Kitchen.

Got a question? Let me hear from you at jmorrishicks@me.com. Or give me a call on my cell at 917-399-9700.

SHARE and rate this post below.

Blogging daily at hpjmh.com…from the seaside village of Stonington, Connecticut – Be well and have a great day.

—J. Morris Hicks, board member, T. Colin Campbell Foundation

Posted in M.D.s---Health-Promoting, Medical Experts, Video Included | Tagged | 5 Comments

Steve Jobs’ diet—Still implicating plant-based eating

Posted on 01/29/2013 by J. Morris Hicks

Ashton Kutcher suffers health scare prepping for ‘Jobs’ (the movie)

Ashton looks like the spitting image of Steve Jobs.

Ashton looks like the spitting image of Steve Jobs.

That was the headline in the news for the past few weeks. It wasn’t a big story and most people probably missed it.

I only found it because I noticed a big jump in traffic to my October 2011 blog about Jobs’ untimely death from pancreatic cancer (see link below). For a few days there, it went from twenty visits a day to about three hundred—that’s when I knew some story had broken.

So what’s the story with Ashton? Turns out he took his Steve Jobs character part very seriously—even tried being “fruitarian” for awhile—then said that it caused him to have pancreatic issues himself. From a 1-26-13 USA Today article (see link below):

Ashton Kutcher might have gotten a little too close to Steve Jobs. Kutcher says that he started a fruit-only diet to prepare to play the Apple co-founder for the biopic Jobs, which premiered Friday night at the Sundance Film Festival.

The diet, which the film claims Jobs adhered to, ended up sending Kutcher to the hospital with pancreas problems. “First of all, the fruitarian diet can lead to like severe issues,” Kutcher said after the film’s screening. “I went to the hospital like two days before we started shooting the movie. I was like doubled over in pain. “My pancreas levels were completely out of whack,” Kutcher added. “It was really terrifying … considering everything.”Jobs died of pancreatic cancer on Oct. 5, 2011.

WikipediaSo what does that mean? Absolutely nothing; it’s just another example of the constant barrage of confusion about health and diet from our news media. Naturally, the take away for the average movie buff out there is that weirdo vegetarian diets are a bad idea.

Some people who read the story will want to find out more on the topic—many of them have found my site. But millions of people probably consulted Wikipedia to learn more about why Steve Jobs died at the young age of 56. Here’s what they found at Wikipedia:

In October 2003, Jobs was diagnosed with cancer,[194] and in mid-2004, he announced to his employees that he had a cancerous tumor in his pancreas.[195] The prognosis for pancreatic cancer is usually very poor;[196] Jobs stated that he had a rare, far less aggressive type known as islet cell neuroendocrine tumor.[195]Despite his diagnosis, Jobs resisted his doctors’ recommendations for mainstream medical intervention for nine months,[155] instead consuming a special alternative medicine diet in an attempt to thwart the disease. According to Harvard researcher Ramzi Amri, his choice of alternative treatment “led to an unnecessarily early death.”[194] According to Jobs’s biographer, Walter Isaacson, “for nine months he refused to undergo surgery for his pancreatic cancer – a decision he later regretted as his health declined.”[197]“Instead, he tried a vegan diet, acupuncture, herbal remedies and other treatments he found online, and even consulted a psychic. He also was influenced by a doctor who ran a clinic that advised juice fasts, bowel cleansings and other unproven approaches, before finally having surgery in July 2004.”[198] He eventually underwent a pancreaticoduodenectomy (or “Whipple procedure”) in July 2004, that appeared to successfully remove the tumor.[199][200][201] Jobs apparently did not receive chemotherapy or radiation therapy.[195][202] During Jobs’s absence, Tim Cook, head of worldwide sales and operations at Apple, ran the company.[195]

Consecutive daily blogs

Consecutive daily blogs

The Bottom Line. It’s almost impossible to get the real truth about diet and health from the news media—which is where most people get their information. Oh, they also get it from their family, friends, physicians and teachers—all of whom get most of their diet/health info from the media. This mass confusion will continue to be a problem until a few prominent leaders start aggressively promoting the truth.

In my article below, you’ll also find a link to an excellent presentation by Dr. John McDougall on the Steve Jobs topic. My conclusion is that we’ll never know for sure why Steve died. That’s because we’ll never know very much about how healthfully he ate for most of his life.

4-Leaf For LifeI would love to have seen Steve take our 4Leaf Survey—answering truthfully to describe how he ate (on average) since he reportedly turned vegetarian (for the first time) in his teens. Then, I would have a much better idea. Take our free 4Leaf Survey

Handy 4-piece take-charge-of-your-health kit—from Amazon.com

Want to find out how healthy your family is eating? Take our free 4Leaf Diagnostic Survey. It takes less than five minutes and you can score it yourself. After taking the survey, please give me your feedback as it will be helpful in the development of our future 4Leaf app for smartphones. Send feedback to jmorrishicks@me.com

International. We’re now reaching people in over 100 countries. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter or get daily blog notices by “following” us in the top of the right-hand column. For occasional updates, join our periodic mailing list.

To order more of my favorite books—visit our online BookStore now

J. Morris Hicks, working daily to promote health, hope and harmony on planet Earth.

For help in your own quest to take charge of your health, you might find some useful information at our 4Leaf page or some great recipes at Lisa’s 4Leaf Kitchen.

Got a question? Let me hear from you at jmorrishicks@me.com. Or give me a call on my cell at 917-399-9700.

SHARE and rate this post below.

Blogging daily at hpjmh.com…from the seaside village of Stonington, Connecticut – Be well and have a great day.

—J. Morris Hicks, board member, T. Colin Campbell Foundation

Posted in Cancer, Celebrities | 2 Comments

The “Perfect Storm” for fixing healthcare—NOW!

Posted on 01/28/2013 by J. Morris Hicks

We’ll never fix “disease care” until we fix the food.

This family in NC is very happy with the way they eat---even though less than 10 percent of their calories comes from food that nature intended for us to eat.

This family in NC is very happy with their diet—even though less than 10 percent of their calories comes from food that nature intended for us to eat.

And that’s a huge problem. In a democratic form of government such as ours, it’s almost impossible to change something as wildly popular as the Standard American Diet—even if it’s killing most of our citizens, bankrupting our treasury and possibly even compromising our national security.

But occasionally, the stars line up in such a way that it is more possible than ever before AND maybe even more possible than it will ever be again.

That’s what I cause a perfect storm for fixing healthcare (“disease care”) in the United States. I really don’t think that the time could ever be more right than it is right NOW. And those “perfect storm” conditions may never be seen again in our lifetimes.

The movie that led to a new phrase in American culture

The movie that led to a new term in American culture

As you will see, the leaders mentioned below have the knowledge AND they have a rare window of opportunity. Quite simply, they can start the process of “taming the healthcare monster,” — by clearly explaining to all Americans how to prevent or reverse 75% of disease. Here’s the five-part perfect storm:

1. Obama. We have a sitting president that “truly gets it” about the world-changing consequences of our food choices. Watch the 4-minute video in this blog: Did you know that Obama really “gets it” about food? (This has nothing to do with being Democrat or Republican; this is all about understanding the consequences of our food choices.)

2. Second term. That sitting president doesn’t have to worry about being elected again. To-do list for our president’s second term in office This means that he can take a stand and tell the world what he really knows to be true about our food choices—even though 90% of Americans won’t like hearing it—at first.

3. Bill Clinton. We have a former president (and the most popular leader in the world) who has walked away from meat & dairy, reversed his heart disease, lost weight, etc. His personal experience coupled with his CGI global scope, make him ideally suited to support any Obama action on this. Bill Clinton in “TIME” — Has his moment of truth arrived?

4. National Security & Health Care. The cost of health care is beginning to affect national security—health care spending is beginning to force downsizing of our defense budget. Dollars & Sense of Healthcare, Defense & National Security

5. Scott Bates, a friend of mine. He is among a very small minority in Washington who fully understands the grave consequences of our food choices—and he is running the Center for National Policy. The CNP is an independent think tank dedicated to advancing the economic and national security of the United States. We bring together thought leaders and decision makers who are focused on the revitalization of our economy for the benefit of all Americans and the strengthening of the values of human rights and democracy at home and across the globe.

This is not about politics. It's time to get things right. For our health, our nation, our planet and ultimately our future as a species.

This is not about politics. It’s time to get things right. For our health, our nation, our planet and ultimately our future as a species.

How important is all of this? How important is it for us to come together and seize this extremely rare perfect storm opportunity? I believe that it is the most important issue in the history of the human race—because what we’re talking about affects the longterm sustainability of our species. What could be more important than that?

Dr. Campbell agrees; from the Introduction of his not-yet-released book, WHOLE, Rethinking the Science of Nutrition:

“What we eat, individually and collectively, has repercussions far beyond our waistlines and blood pressure readings. No less than our future as a species hangs in the balance.”

723What can you do to help? Send this blog to every public official that you know. Also send it to your friends and ask them to send it to their public officials.

This perfect storm won’t last forever; they say that Team Obama has only got about two years at best to get much accomplished. Hopefully, they’ll be bold and choose their projects wisely. They need to exhibit some Lincoln-esque leadership right about now. —My 723rd consecutive daily blog—

Handy 4-piece take-charge-of-your-health kit—from Amazon.com

Want to find out how healthy your family is eating? Take our free 4Leaf Diagnostic Survey. It takes less than five minutes and you can score it yourself. After taking the survey, please give me your feedback as it will be helpful in the development of our future 4Leaf app for smartphones. Send feedback to jmorrishicks@me.com

International. We’re now reaching people in over 100 countries. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter or get daily blog notices by “following” us in the top of the right-hand column. For occasional updates, join our periodic mailing list.

To order more of my favorite books—visit our online BookStore now

J. Morris Hicks, working daily to promote health, hope and harmony on planet Earth.

For help in your own quest to take charge of your health, you might find some useful information at our 4Leaf page or some great recipes at Lisa’s 4Leaf Kitchen.

Got a question? Let me hear from you at jmorrishicks@me.com. Or give me a call on my cell at 917-399-9700.

SHARE and rate this post below.

Blogging daily at hpjmh.com…from the seaside village of Stonington, Connecticut – Be well and have a great day.

—J. Morris Hicks, board member, T. Colin Campbell Foundation

Posted in Activism & Leadership, Celebrities, Food Policy | 2 Comments