THE CHEMICAL WORLD THIS WEEK
NUTRITION:
Offering New Standards Nutritional standards for foods—or a lack of nutritional standards—have come under close scrutiny and criticism in recent weeks. Stating that "recent trends in food production, processing, and consumption suggest that existing policies for ensuring nutritional ade quacy of the food supply may no longer be as effective as desired," an international committee sponsored by the International Union of Nutritional Sciences, the International Union of Food Science and Technology, and the U.S. National Academy of SciencesNational Research Council has recom mended a set of guidelines for nutri tional standards. Dr. Roy E. Morse, committee organizer and professor of food science at Rutgers University, ex pects the recommendations to gener ate much discussion and controversy at symposiums to be held next year. And at last week's autumn meeting of the National Academy of Sciences at Rice University in Houston, Tex., Dr. Roger J. Williams, director of the Clayton Foundation Biochemical In stitute at University of Texas, Austin, charged that nutrition has been se riously neglected by the Food and Drug Administration and by classical medical education. "Enriched'' food products of the milling and baking in dustries fall far below nutritional standards made possible by existing scientific advances, Dr. Williams claims. He cites a lack of cognizance of the value of such nutrients as vita mins B 6 , B 12 , A, and E, pantothenic acid, folic acid, the amino acids, and minerals—conspicuously magnesium— in enriching bakery products and cere als. Bakers and millers are not al lowed by FDA to modify bread and flour as they might wish, he says. This restriction is due partly to a concept that white bread and flour should ap proach the nutritional value of whole wheat bread and flour. But with mod ern knowledge, bread vastly superior to whole wheat bread could easily be produced, Dr. Williams claims. The apathy of the medical profes sion toward taking a stronger stand on nutrition has resulted, Dr. Wil liams believes, from unwarranted, generalized claims made by nutrition enthusiasts, whose number includes faddists and charlatans. Rather than become embroiled with these enthu siasts, medical educators have chosen to avoid and ignore them. But in do ing so, he says, they have tended to ignore bona fide nutrition as well. The failure of medical science to treat nutrition more seriously has farreaching effects, the biochemist says. For instance, there is no organization anywhere in the world that purports
Mr. Passwater is director of Ameri can Instrument Co.'s applications re search laboratory in Silver Spring, Md. He has been doing gerontological re search in his spare time for the past decade and, since 1966, has been test ing his drug formulation with mice. He has also been testing the formula tion on himself for the past year. Mr. Passwater helped establish American Gerontological Research Laboratories, Inc., earlier this year. The company will begin to market vi tamins and other standard food sup plements in November. Profits will finance research on human aging, as well as tests of Mr. Passwater's formu lation. Mr. Passwater has applied for a patent on the formulation, and any patent rights will go to the company. The company will soon apply for Food and Drug Administration approval of testing of the formulation, including clinical studies. FDA approval is also required before the studies proposed in Toronto can be started. The drug formulation is based on a "unified theory of aging" that Mr. Passwater has assembled from research by other gerontologists and his own work with protein missynthesis resorters and singlet oxygen. The theory focuses on alterations of DNA and RNA by free radical reactions initiated by radiation or oxidation, causing proteins—particu larly enzymes—to be synthesized in correctly and leading eventually to death of cells. Antioxidants and sul fur and selenium compounds can ter minate free radical chain reactions. Selenium compounds may also break up incorrectly synthesized proteins, Mr. Passwater says, perhaps by cleav ing disulfide bonds that are exposed for abnormally long times during changes in conformation.
University of Texas' Williams Bona fide nutrition ignored
to study any disease—whether arteri osclerosis, arthritis, mental disease, cancer, or others—by thoroughly con sidering the role of nutrition. Several of the guidelines from Dr. Morse's committee deal with changing diets caused by the growing use of new processed foods. The committee sees a potential danger in food tech nology that "has become sophisticated to the extent that palatable processed foods can be developed that may be entirely devoid of certain essential nu trients." Thus it recommends that "nutrient content of fabricated foods be related to their place in the diet," and that "nutrient content of foods that substitute for . . . traditional foods be similar to that of the food they are intended to replace."
Slowing Cell Breakdown If aging—or at least premature agingcan be considered a disease, then Rich ard A. Passwater would add aging to Dr. Williams' list of diseases whose nu tritional aspects have been neglected. At last week's annual meeting of the Gerontological Society in Toronto, Canada, Mr. Passwater proposed na tional and worldwide studies to test a drug formulation he has developed and that he believes will "significantly re tard aging and improve the qualitv of life." The formulation consists of antioxi dants, sulfur- and selenium-containing amino acids, and "protein missynthesis resorters." Vitamin Ε and butylated hydroxytoluene are the major antioxi dants. The amino acids can be cys teine or methionine and their selenium analogs. The selenium analogs can function as resorters, he says, as can other selenium compounds.
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AGRL's R. J. Passwater A unified theory of aging OCT. 26, 1970 C&EN 17
