The common consensus is that nutritional supplements offer some degree of protection against disease, and that they can speed up recovery in those who have succumbed to illness. But who would expect that taking a single vitamin could make someone get out of a wheelchair and walk?
Yet this is what happened to a group of patients in Western New York who suffered from severe myopathy, a muscle disorder which had weakened them to such an extent that they were confined to wheelchairs. A team of doctors from State University of New York at Buffalo and Kaleida Health in Buffalo put them on a high-potency vitamin D supplement. Within six weeks, all study participants reported noticeable improvement, including a resolution of pain and a restoration of normal muscle strength. Four patients became fully mobile, and the fifth also became mobile. In each case, weakness and immobility had previously been attributed to other causes, including old age, diabetic neuropathy, or general debility. But it was a simple nutrient–vitamin D–which gave these people the strength to get out of their wheelchairs and walk!
Vitamin D, a fat-soluble vitamin which helps the body assimilate calcium and other nutrients required for healthy bones, muscles, and nerves, is produced in the body through the interaction of the ultraviolet rays of the sun with certain chemicals in the fatty tissue under the skin. Food sources of vitamin D are fish and fish liver oils, and eggs and dairy products.
Vitamin D deficiency is widespread in North America and other geographical areas where people don’t get enough sunshine on a regular basis. Poor nutrition, fat-restricted diets, and intestinal malabsorption are other contributing factors. When Edgar Cayce was asked what changes in civilization were the causes for vitamin D deficiency, he answered: “The tendency to have less sunshine activity, or less activity in the sunshine, and the taking of more foods that are not close to nature.” (648-11)
In another medical study, researchers found that a vitamin-like substance, co-enzyme Q10 (Co-Q10), could successfully treat some cases of hereditary ataxia, a disease characterized by an inability to coordinate voluntary muscle movements. Some ataxia patients have problems with balance or speech, while others suffer from seizures. Co-Q10 aids oxygen utilization in the body. In this study, a team of researchers at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York identified six patients with hereditary ataxia whose Co-Q10 levels were significantly below normal. Five of the six could not walk. After taking a high-potency Co-Q10 supplement, all patients showed dramatic improvement in strength and well-being and were able to walk, although they required assistance, for instance a rolling walker.
When we consider the implications of the studies done with vitamin D and Co-Q10, we cannot help but wonder how many others are suffering needlessly, in wheelchairs or in hospital beds, because of nutritional imbalances. And billions of research dollars are being spent on the development of pharmaceutical drugs for conditions which could and should first be addressed with nutrition and other natural means.
Although it may seem surprising that a single nutrient, such as a vitamin, should have so much healing power, it is consistent with Edgar Cayce’s definition of vitamins as “the creative forces working with the body-energies for the renewing of the body!” (3511-1). This underscores the importance of nutrition, and of vitamins, in restoring good health.
The late Dr. John Whitman Ray, a naturopathic physician, psychologist, mathematician, and Pax Mundi award recipient, often emphasized the importance of addressing the obvious first. He put it into these intuitively received words:
To search for things beyond our grasp is fantasy,
When that unfinished lies within our reach–we see
Has not yet been completed, yet holds the key
To that which, through right action, ours will be.
The simplest things in life will make us free.
Searching for more powerful drugs will not cure our ills until we’ve learned to heal our nutritional and energetic imbalances. For the group of patients in Western New York, vitamin D was the simple thing that freed them from life in a wheelchair.
Note: Unusually high doses of nutritional supplements should only be taken under medical supervision.
Reprint by permission from Venture Inward, Virginia Beach, VA.
Simone Gabbay, is a holistic nutritionist, based in Toronto, Canada. Her books are rooted in the Edgar Cayce health material and include Nourishing the Body Temple, Visionary Medicine, and Edgar Cayce’s Diet Plan for Optimal Health and Weight Loss. You can learn more at SimoneGabbay.com.
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