medical discovery

Background:
Although scientists have long known that our bodies contain more than 72 trace elements, all but the 8 long known nutritional trace elements were dismissed out of hand as unimportant and of no consequence, solely due to their miniscule amounts in our systems. Their presence in our bodies was presumed to be incidental, like a few molecules of earth from a lettuce, or baked potato. It was not until 1975 that a few other than the 8 known trace elements have been begun to be investigated, and most of this research came only in the last decade. The count of the trace elements now proven to be indispensable to the normal function of our metabolism and immune systems currently stands at 14. This leaves well over 50 nutritional trace elements unrecognized, uninvestigated, and still 'unknown'.Meanwhile, our modern agriculture still only maintains a paltry 5 trace elements in its soils, and 3 others, as mentioned elsewhere, are added at other stages of our nutrition. This leaves practically all of our daily food severely deficient in over 60 natural trace elements.Since then (1975), thousands of articles and papers have been published regarding 6 newly recognized nutritional trace elements (chromium, nickel, silicon, arsenic, tin and vanadium). Here, I can list only a few 'milestone' articles and papers of what is now a huge body of biomedical literature.
Instead of just citing the following articles, I have included short excerpts of these articles here.


"Miracle Metal"; Equinox, July/August 1985 (Article) "

When Dr. John McNeill, dean of pharmaceutical sciences at UBC, and his colleagues Clayton Heilinger and Arun Tahiliani were testing vanadium - a common trace element found in seaweed - on diabetes induced female rats to see if it would prevent the development of cardiac problems, they made a startling discovery. Vanadium not only improved the rats' cardiovascular performance, it also regulated the levels of glucose in their blood and prevented the formation of cataracts. In fact, the rats that were fed vanadium in their drinking water appeared normal in all respects. ... Adds McNeill: 'The fact that vanadium appears to fix the whole system is a very nice discovery. It was not something we originally intended to look for.'On average, an adult consumes one to four milligrams of vanadium every day from such foods as meat, milk, vegetables and bread: fish and marine plants are particularly good sources. The biological importance of vanadium, however, is largely unknown. A natural part of the regulatory system, it is believed to prevent cholesterol formation both in blood vessels and in the central nervous system. ... However, says McNeill, 'we never thought vanadium would do it [mimic insulin] so well. From everything we looked at, the rats were completely normal."Comments: McNeill went on to do vanadium trials with diabetic rabbits, with the same dramatic results. Planned human trials have been delayed do to lack of funding.Vanadium - one of the many 'unknown', (dismissed) and missing nutritional trace elements - is presently not monitored and maintained in agricultural soils. As the direct result of this and much other research, vanadium is now available in some vitamin-cum-minerals (trace elements) nutritional supplements, such as "Centrum", "Century", "Spectrum", "Optimum" and "Balance".And while the deficiency or lack of vanadium in our daily nutrition has proven to be a central factor in the onset and development of diabetes, it is, in my opinion, far from the whole story. Like calcium and magnesium, none of the nutritional trace elements work in isolation. Many other trace elements - most of them long dismissed as unimportant and presently still 'unknown' - are required for the normal function of our metabolisms and immune systems.It has become known, for instance, that zinc and magnesium also reduce the blood sugar level, and that diabetic patients are often deficient in zinc, magnesium, chromium, copper and manganese. For these reasons I believe that the proposed vanadium trials will not be as successful as they could be in conjunction with the full natural spectrum of the 72+ nutritional trace elements.

Most important medical discovery for mankind

Prior to the twentieth century, blood and its function was poorly understood. In trying to solve the problem of serious blood loss from injuries, doctors tried to inject (transfuse) blood from another person or animal into the injured patient. In some cases, this worked and the patient recovered. In many more cases, however, the blood transfusion actually harmed the patient, often causing death. No one could predict which type of reaction would occur as a result of a blood transfusion. So, by the beginning of the nineteenth century, most European nations had outlawed the practice of blood transfusion.
About 1900 Austrian-American physician Karl Landsteiner (1868-1943) developed an explanation for the phenomenon of blood rejection. Landsteiner found that human blood serum (the liquid portion of blood surrounding the cells) could be divided into four categories, depending on its ability to cause clotting of red blood cells. He gave these groups the names A, B, AB, and 0 based on what type of clotting antigen they had, if any.
In 1940 Landsteiner discovered another of blood factor antigen, known as Rh. This discovery resulted from Landsteiner's studies with Rhesus monkeys. Landsteiner and his colleagues found that when blood from monkeys was injected into rabbits and guinea pigs, it clotted. This was because of the presence of another antigen that the researchers had not classified before. Landsteiner called this antigen the Rh (Rhesus) factor. Researchers also showed that the factor occurs among some, but not all, humans. It is also inherited.
Importance of Rh Factor
The Rh discovery had immediate practical importance because it explained a relatively common medical disorder known as erythroblastosis fetalis. In this condition, an Rh-negative woman who becomes pregnant with an Rh-positive fetus (an unborn child) sometimes develops anti-bodies against the Rh factor in the fetus. This development usually causes no problem during the woman's first pregnancy, since the number of anti-bodies produced tends to be small.
By the time a second pregnancy occurs, the situation has changed. The number of Rh antibodies produced by the mother's body has become large enough to cause destruction of red blood cells in the fetus. This can result in complications such as anemia (a chronic blood condition characterized by lack of energy), jaundice (a condition in which bile pigments build up in the blood and cause skin, eyeballs and urine to take on a sickly yellow tone) or premature birth. Today, this reaction can be controlled by immunizing Rh negative women after their first pregnancy with a drug known as RhoGam.