Cellular Nutrition

By Ron Hunninghake, M.D.

To understand cellular nutrition, you need to know about Dr. Roger Williams. He was a brilliant nutritional scientist and a prolific writer on the subject of nutrition. Much of this information comes from his many books, but especially from The Wonderful World Within You.

Every second 10 million old red blood cells are weeded out and 10 million new ones are produced

Have you ever heard, “You are what you eat”? Everything in our bodies we put there through our choices of what we have eaten. There are choices we can make to help us ensure a higher level of quality of foods that we do eat. The quality of this food directly influences the quality and function of the organ structures and cellular structures of our body.

Dr. Williams often reminds us that prize-winning dogs and blue-ribbon cattle are scientifically nourished. I know some people who pay more attention to the Science Diet they buy for their cats or dogs than they do about what they choose for themselves.

Let’s dig deeper into what he means by cellular nutrition. From the perspective of the Milky Way, our sun is just a speck. From the perspective of the Solar System, the earth is really just a little speck. From the perspective of an airplane, people are just little specks on the earth. We are living specks composed of living specks. So nutrition is nothing more than proper speck management.

The cell is the functional unit of any organism; every cell is quite magnificent. They are our most important specks. They are specialized factories that churn out the molecules of life working around the clock.

The healing principle is already built into the body. Take a leaky roof as an analogy. You call the very best roofer in the county and he is there ready to fix your roof but there are no shingles, no nails, and no tar paper. It does not matter how good a roofer he is; he could do nothing to help your leaky roof. He’s got to have the building materials to do the repair work.

Now your body is your house. You have to maintain your house. In youth, you build your house. In adulthood, you maintain it. Growth and maintenance require proper biological molecules. Similarly, the micronutrients and the macronutrients that we consume are what the master healer within us uses in order to repair the damage and the wear and tear that occur with living.

Dr. Williams first discovered the importance of these growth and maintenance chemicals when he started looking into the structure of pantothenic acid (vitamin BS). He found it was an essential growth and maintenance molecule. Since then about 50 essential micronutrients have been identified. Now we are finding phytonutrients, which are the colors and the various pigments within plants and animals that the cells seem to need in very small amounts in order to regulate their functioning. If you eat whole foods, you are going to ensure that you are going to get all of the essential nutrients that you need, even the ones that have not been discovered by science.

We tend to take ourselves for granted. There are 30 trillion red blood cells pouring through your vessels right now. They are conveying oxygen to your tissues (thank you red blood cells). These red blood cells have a life span of only six weeks. Every second 10 million old red blood cells are weeded out and 10 million new ones are produced.

This process takes a continuous supply of nourishing food. If you don’t have this nourishing food, you cannot replenish these red blood cells. You’ve got to have iron, fatty acids, and protein to make the membranes. The quality of these cells depends on the nutritional environment of your bone marrow because that is where the red blood cells are made. If your bone marrow is not receiving a steady supply of these building blocks in adequate amounts then you could be making inferior red blood cells.

Cells have many jobs. Liver cells can regenerate. Muscle cells are large and contain multiple nuclei. Nerve cells are very specialized. Our body is composed of many different types of cells doing all kinds of functions. You can only perform and feel as good as your cells are performing.

This truism is the basis of a more expanded understanding of health and disease. A disease in the body can be equated to dysfunctional cells, made so in part by an inadequate nutritional environment. So, from that perspective of the disease, you want to find out what is lacking or you want to detoxify or bring back to balance what may be an excess. That, in very simple terms, is a different way of looking at disease.

Dr. Williams used the term genetotrophic as the explanation for why we get diseases. Genesis means the origin or birth and trophikos means nursing or feeding. Any type of genetotrophic condition is a condition that is predisposed by heredity and precipitated by nutritional factors. As an example of genetotrophism, consider the Polynesian islanders who were eating their traditional diet before ore was discovered on their island After the ore was discovered, the mining companies brought prosperity as well as their western diet to the island. The islanders’ diet began to include white sugar, white flour, and a lot of refined foods. Within about two decades, 90% of the islanders developed diabetes.

They all had the gene for diabetes prior to the arrival of the western diet. It took the non-whole foods diet, the lack of micronutrients, and a change in lifestyle for that trait to manifest itself. Prior to that time, they were protected by their traditional diet. Micronutrient inadequacy of the western diet allowed for the manifestation of this disease,

That’s genetotrophism. Genetic tendencies are built within us, but it is only when our nutritional environment becomes weak that they tend to manifest. If you want to delve deeper into it, Dr. Roger Williams’ book, The Wonderful World Within You is available at The Center. While the book was written over 30 years ago, it reads as if he were writing it for right now.

Remember, your health can only be as good as your cellular health, Find out what cells need to function better. This will lead you to a better diet and lifestyle choice.