Nutrition and reductionism? Things pills just can’t replace

It is uncommon for most surgeons to talk about nutrition the way they talk about how to excise a complicated cancer of the pancreas or the brain. This is a subject rarely emphasized during training; so, in clinical practice, this is relegated to other specialties.

However, almost daily, a surgical patient asks, “What kind of vitamin pills can I take to hasten my recovery?” and my ready answer is, “If you are eating right, vitamin supplements would be unnecessary.”

I thought of the title of this column after reading a chapter in Dr. T. Colin Campbell’s book, (“The China Study”) entitled “Scientific Reductionism” which he defines as the “mistake of characterizing whole foods by the health effects of specific nutrients.”

A patient wishing to improve his Vitamin C intake asks whether he could accomplish this by popping an “over the counter pill” from the pharmacy instead of eating an orange or spinach from the grocery. The belief that this is possible is erroneous and I call it “nutrition reductionism.” I apologize if my use of the term “reductionism” is unpalatable to the elitists; my point is that no pill can replace the nutritional value of the real fruit or vegetable.

Dr. Campbell expounds on this subject. Essentially, nutritional supplements such as vitamins and minerals are important because they are antioxidants. Antioxidants are substances produced by a plant to protect itself from the byproduct of its own complex metabolic process called free radicals. We, humans, produce free radicals that damage our organs and general health, but we do not produce “protective” antioxidants, so we depend on nutritious plants to provide this need.

These antioxidants appear in plants in different colors; for example, beta-carotene is yellow (found in squash); lycopene is red (found in tomatoes); crytoxanthins is orange color in (oranges) and some are colorless as in ascorbic acid (Vitamin C). In a remarkable study of the relationship between cancer and nutrition, researchers found, for instance, that lack of vitamin C was associated with high incidence of esophageal cancer, hypertensive heart disease and strokes and low levels of beta-carotene was associated with high levels of gastric cancer.

Is there a multi-million dollar nutrition manufacturing company that can reproduce these colors in a pill form to replace the health benefits provided by the naturally occurring colorful fruits and vegetables? The answer is, of course, no. Dr. Campbell asserts that the “triumph of health lies not in the individual nutrients but in the whole food that contains those nutrients.”

He cites an example: a bowl of spinach salad. This bowl of food contains, fibers, antioxidants and countless other nutrients that will work in concert within our bodies; nutrition represents the combined activities of countless food substances making the whole greater than the sum of its parts.

Finally, he avers that vitamin supplements are not panacea for maintaining good health. If we are convinced that “nutrition operates as an infinitely complex biochemical system involving thousands of chemicals and thousands of effects on health, it makes no sense how an isolated nutrient can substitute for whole foods.”

The take home message according to Dr. Campbell: “If you want Vitamin C or beta carotene … don’t reach for the pill bottle, reach for the fruit or the leafy green vegetables.”

Reference: “The China Study” by Dr. T. Campbell, et al.

Dr. Cabasares is a board certified general surgeon and Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. He practices in Perry.

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