Rare Earths Forbidden Cures [Paperback]

In this book, Wallach lays out all kinds of newspaper clippings from various newspaper articles about doctors and famous people who died at young ages. Those clippings are appropriately placed in the section where the major mineral deficiency was the cause of death, such as chromium for a diabetic coma, etc.

This book is a wonderful source of information on minerals, and their functions. It also lays out all kinds of info on deficiency diseases, and how minerals can help certain ailments.

This section also covers a bunch of different alternative approaches to wellness, such as Ayurvedic medicine, the Dean Ornish Diet, and many others. The information is in depth, and covers a good amount of material for a book focused on mineral supplementation.

This book pretty much has it all, and is a great read if you wish to gain knowledge on the role of minerals in our health and well being.

It's more than a little gory at times. I guess doing 18,000 autopsies, gave the author sort of a callous view of life. The descriptions of what the Inca and Jack the Ripper did to their captives is not for the weak at heart. Hint: a deficiency of minerals causes strange cravings.

One new idea I really liked was the documentation of zinc deficiency in mothers that become pregnant as a cause of Down's syndrome. Apparently one can demonstrate this in the lab with monkeys or simians. Healthy babies then introduce a zinc deficiency in the diet and get Downs syndrome, then add the zinc back and get normal babies again. Wow!

A second idea: adding rare earths to the diet of mice and other animals extends life span by 2X! Wow, again! Excellent bibliography, but I was unable to locate this one paper on feeding rare earths to get 2X life span.

Excellent basic book.

I highly recomend.

Leon L. Hulett