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Weston Price was a prominent dentist and nutritional researcher in the 20s and 30s. He went on a tour around the world, studying isolated groups of people, the
by patrickgzill 16y ago
Weston Price was a prominent dentist and nutritional researcher in the 20s and 30s.
He went on a tour around the world, studying isolated groups of people, their diet (including mineral content) and checking their dental health, using it as a proxy for resistance to infection and proof that dietary needs are being met.
From studying groups as diverse as a remote Swiss village, windswept Scottish fishing town, African tribes, Pacific Islanders, and Inuit, he came to a series of conclusions which are at least somewhat in agreement with this.
A secondary point was also that poor nutrition of the mother, could be seen in children due to crowding of the tooth and other maladies.
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200251h.html http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200251h.html
The book is a little archaic and I am sure that some of the text sounds odd to modern-day ears, however if you can read past that you can find some interesting information.
I am aware of the skepticism some have about Weston Price, but recommend at least skimming his own words rather than reading only choice tidbits presented by those who disagree with him or would debunk his views as junk science.
- martey 16y agoLooking at the websites of the Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation <http://www.ppnf.org/ http://www.ppnf.org/ > and the Weston A Price Foundation <http://www.westonaprice.org/ http://www.westonaprice.org/ >, both linked from Price's Wikipedia article, I am not convinced that those who call his views "junk science" are wrong. Among their tenets: * supporting raw whole milk instead of pasteurized milk * believing that facial structure has an effect on health (and that the nutrition of one's parents affects this) * campaigning against the fluoridation of public water
- nixme 16y agoYeah, the modern foundations espousing his ideals do promote junk science like homeopathy. But some of his original research is still interesting. Consider reading some of Stephan Guyenet's blog posts about that research (http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/ http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/) (grain of salt implied, like with any prescriptive nutritional advice).
- patrickgzill 16y agoAll I can tell you is that the linked book points out his reasoning. The book I mentioned does not talk about #1 and #3, but does mention his reasoning concerning #2 - that a lack of specific nutrients during pregnancy can lead to health problems, and that crowded teeth has nothing to do with genetics but instead has to do with nutrition. If you read up on livestock nutrition, you will find that a lack of certain nutrients during gestation does lead to certain well-defined problems in the offspring; and for the next litter fixing the nutrition for the mother, stops the problem from recurring. I suppose a search for "pig gestation nutrition" will get you some links. Personally I do question the need for fluoridation of water supply, given that other countries do not do it and their populations do not have significantly higher dental problems, i.e. lack of fluoridation is not correlated with higher rates of dental problems. If Price's argument about nutrition is correct, fluoridation is treating the symptom rather than the cause in any case.
- tokenadult 16y agohttp://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/holisticdent.html http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/holisticde...
- patrickgzill 16y agoThere are a lot of errors in both fact and logic in that Quackwatch piece, which is why I suggest that you skim/read the link I posted in my original comment. (That is, read the original source material and make up your own mind.)