WHY I DID
My professional education was strictly establishment when it came to vitamins. My courses in pharmacology, biochemistry, organic and inorganic chemistry, and public health hardly dealt with vitamins at all – except in relation to deficiency diseases. Lack of vitamin C? Scurvy. Out of B1? Beriberi. Not enough vitamin D? Rickets. My courses were the standard fare, with the usual references to a balanced diet and eating the “right foods” (all unappetizingly illustrated on semi glossy charts).
There were no references to vitamins’ being used for disease prevention or as ways to optimum health.
In 1965 I opened my first pharmacy. Until then I never realized just how many drugs people were taking, not for illness but simply to get through the day. (I had one regular patron who had prescriptions for pills to supplant virtually all his bodily functions – and he wasn’t even sick!)
EARL MINDELL’S NEW VITAMIN BIBLE
My partner at the time was very vitamin-oriented. Both of us were working fifteen hours a day, but only I looked and felt it. When I asked him what his secret was, he said it was not secret at all. It was vitamins. I realized what he was talking about had very little to do with scurvy and beriberi and a lot to do with me. I instantly became an eager pupil, and have never since regretted it. He taught me the benefits that could be reaped from nature’s own foods in the form of vitamins, how B complex and C could alleviated stress, how vitamin E would increase my endurance and stamina, and how B12 could eliminate fatigue. After embarking on the most elementary vitamin regimens I was not only convinced. I was converted.
Suddenly nutrition became the most important thing in my life. I read every book I could find on the subject, clipped articles and tracked down their sources, dug out my pharmacy school texts and discovered the amazingly close relationship that did indeed exist between biochemistry and nutrition. I attended any health lecture I could. In fact, it was at one such lecture that I learned of the RNA-DNA nucleic complex and its age-reversing properties.
A whole new world had opened up for me and I wanted others to share it. My partner understood completely. We began giving out samples of B complex and B12 tablets to patrons, suggesting they try decreasing their dependency on tranquilizers, pep pills, and sedatives with the vitamins and vitamin-rich foods.
The results were remarkable! People kept coming back to tell us how much better and more energetic they felt. Instead of the negativity and resignation that often accompanies drug therapies, we received overwhelming positiveness. I saw a woman who had spent nearly all her young adult life on Librium, running from doctor to therapist and back again, become a healthy, happy, drug-free human being; a sixty-year-old architect, on the brink of retirement because of ill health, regain his well-being and accept a commission for what is now one of the foremost office buildings in Los Angeles; a middle-aged pill-dependent actor kick his habit and land a sought-after supporting role in a TV series that still nets him handsome residuals.
By 1970 I was totally committed to nutrition and preventive medicine. Seeing the paucity of knowledge in the area, I went into partnership with another pharmacist for the prime purpose of making natural vitamins and accurate nutrition information available to the public.
Today, as a nutritionist, lecturer, and author, I’m still excited about that world that opened up to me over thirty years ago – a world that continues to grow with new discoveries daily – and I’m eager to share it.
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Guest:
Kathleen O’Bannon, CNC, is President and CEO. Her experience includes 30 years of experience in the health food industry in both the US and Canada as a speaker, nutritionist, product formulator, certified nutrition counselor, and author. Kathleen is the author of nine books on nutrition, produced and starred in her own television and radio shows on natural health and nutrition in the US and Canada, and is a recognized expert on the use of sterols for health. She is available for private lifestyle consultations by appointment. Kathleen chooses only the highest quality ingredients for our supplements and scours the world for new and innovative products to market under the respected brand of Health Alive!