Weston A. Price – Nutrition and Physical Degeneration

“Product DescriptionFirst published in 1939, this seminal book startled the worlds of science and nutrition with its documented evidence of primitive populations encountering civilisation, adopting modern diets, and finding that their health worsened. It remains the basic book in this area and is essential reading for those concerned with food and health. About the AuthorDr. Price was a Cleveland dentist, who has been called the Charles Darwin of Nutrition. Searching for the causes of dental decay and physical degeneration he observed daily in his dental practice, he turned from test tubes and microscopes to study people with fine teeth the isolated primitives.””Initially Price did dental research regarding the then broad consensus in the dental and medical community of the late 19th and early 20th centuries on the relationship between endodontic therapy and pulpless teeth and broader systemic disease which by that time was known as focal infection theory which resulted in what would be later called an orgy of extractions of tonsils and teeth. The quality of this and similar research began to be largely questioned in the 1930s resulting in focal infection theory falling out of favor and pushed to the margins of dentistry by the 1950.””By 1930 Price had shifted his interest from focal infection to nutrition. In 1939 he published Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, detailing his global travels studying the diets and nutrition of various cultures. The book concludes that aspects of a modern Western diet (particularly flour and sugar) caused nutritional deficiencies that were a root cause of many dental issues and health problems.The dental issues he observed include the proper development of the facial structure (to avoid over-crowding of the teeth) in addition to dental caries. This work received mixed reviews, and continues to be cited today by proponents of many different theories, including controversial dentistry and nutritional theories.”