The following excerpt is from a lecture delivered by Dr. Royal Lee in 1963. For the full speech, as well as 36 other inspired talks by Dr. Lee, see Lectures of Royal Lee, Volume I.
Natural vs. Synthetic
Natural vitamin complexes, as present in organic foods, differ from synthetic vitamins in the following respect.
In the case of natural vitamins, we find them in organic combination with each other as well as with minerals, which are equally necessary for their physiological action, including trace minerals, which are of great importance due to their catalytic action in association with vitamins. Then there are the enzymes and coenzymes, upon whose presence the proper utilization and effect of vitamins also depends.
All of these associated factors are not present in synthetic and crystalline vitamin preparations, whose effectiveness is thereby reduced as compared with a natural source of vitamins, which are usually provided in an organic complex containing these other vital factors and compounds.
Crystalline synthetic vitamins, which are isolated factors, functionally cannot be separated from the natural vitamin complex without destroying its biological relation and value.
We must therefore conclude that isolated vitamin factors cannot produce the desired physiological action that normally result from the presence of natural vitamin complexes, [which consist] of a proper combination of known and unknown factors, catalysts, enzymes, plant compounds [phytonutrients], etc., constituting a working team that no chemist, by a process of synthesis or union of isolated factors, can reproduce or imitate.
The natural vitamin complex carries trace-mineral activators, without which the vitamin-enzymes fail as organic catalysts.
Just as the chemist cannot create life, neither can he create a complex vitamin, the life element in foods and nutrition. This is a mystery the chemist has not solved and probably never will, and the synthetic vitamins he creates on the basis of chemical formulae bear as much resemblance to the real thing as a robot does to a living man, lacking an elusive quality that chemistry cannot supply.
Can�t Approximate Nature
A few years ago some saltwater fish were brought into a London aquarium, but there only a small amount of seawater there, which was insufficient for the needs of the fish. One of the curators said that he could make seawater, [since] its formula was well known. So he got out the book, assembled the ingredients and made a batch of seawater.
But when they place a fish in the water, it soon died. Three or four times the curator made seawater, being more careful each time, but the fish that went into the tank died in every case. There was one smart curator there, however, who had a brainstorm. Let us take this last batch of artificially made seawater and put into it the tiniest bit of real seawater.
When they did that, the fish could live in it. Evidently in real seawater there is a gleam of some substance which is too tiny to measure and which, therefore, is not in the published formula for seawater but which is needed by fish in order to live.
Evidence Against Synthetics
[Now] let us take the case of vitamins. It has been discovered that vitamin C consists of six carbons, eight of hydrogen and six of oxygen. Now vitamin C can be extracted from foods such as citrus or tomatoes, but it can be made much cheaper from coal-tar products, and probably 99.9 percent of vitamin C complex sold in drugstores today is of the synthetic variety. [This remains true today.]
But are the two products the same? Let me give you the answer by citing an experiment that was reported in the Russian medical journal called Vitamin Research News (No. 1, p. 40, 1946). Mice were fed a deficient diet that is known to produce scurvy, and when it was apparent that they were all suffering from this disease, they were divided into two groups and treated with vitamin C, which is known to cure scurvy. But one group was given the vitamin C produced synthetically [isolated ascorbic acid], while the other group had the benefit of vitamin C obtained from a plant [the full vitamin C complex]. The group that was fed on the natural vitamin C was completely cured within a short time. Those that were treated with the synthetic product were not.
Let us take another case, which is described in the British publication Nature (January 1, 1952). The authors, St. Rusznyak and A. Szent-Gyorgy [the discoverer of ascorbic acid] studied a disease involving the fragility of the walls of the blood vessels. They treated one group of laboratory animals with peppers, a natural food known to contain large amounts of vitamin C. The second group received synthetic vitamin C (ascorbic acid). The disease was cured only in the first group of animals. There must be an unknown factor [or factors] in peppers.
A third example is the description of asignificant experiment mentioned in the book entitled Food and Nutrition, written by E.W.H. Cruickshank, MD. Three groups of chicks were fed on the same diet. [In addition], the first group received no vitamin D at all. The second group was given a synthetic vitamin D [and the third group was given natural vitamin D preparation] made from cod-liver oil.
In the no-vitamin chicks, sixty percent died. In the synthetic-D group, fifty percent died. However, in the natural vitamin D group, there was not one death!
Dangers of Taking Synthetic Vitamins
There is a danger of excess of isolated vitamin factors [i.e, what we call �vitamins� today]. When too much of any particular [isolated] vitamin [factor] is taken, it tends to upset the balance of vitamin metabolism and leads to compensatory deficiency of other vitamins. This has been clearly demonstrated in the case of the various members of the vitamin B complex.
Thus, an excess of certain B factors, such as thiamine [vitamin B1], has been found to produce compensatory deficiency of other factors, such as pyroxidine [vitamin B6]. This shows why it is much better to use the entire vitamin B complex, as provided by natural organic sources of the vitamin.
Just as no chemist can synthetically, create the vitamin B complex because it contains both known and unknown vitamin B and other associated factors on which its proper action depends, so it is impossible for any physician to specify to the exact tolerance of any individual to special isolated vitamins and to differentiate between the quantity that constitutes harmful excess and what does not.
Dr. Royal Lee on synthetic vitamins
Thanks so much for your help!
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