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Since the Second World War, doctors, scientists, nutritionists and researchers have been puzzled about the steady increase of degenerative diseases in the industrialized western world. We are inundated daily with news that seems to either shed new light on nutritional facts or muddies the waters with confusion, depending on whether the sources are based on scientific research or driven by commercial interests.

The question is, are we being told the truth? Let's take a look at the degenerative diseases, which, at the turn of the century, were fairly insignificant causes of death. At that time, many people died of diphtheria, TB, scarlet fever and all kinds of sickness related to improper hygiene. Most, however, died of old age. Modern medicine has conquered many of these maladies that plagued mankind. Yet now we face rising figures for heart disease, cancer, obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and many more. While nutrition-oriented doctors maintain that these degenerative diseases are food related, to this day orthodox medicine still looks for the causes elsewhere and treats the symptoms with pharmaceutical drugs. At best, heart disease is related to a high consumption of fat and cholesterol, which resulted in the "low-fat" or "no-fat" diet fad and the promotion of the "no cholesterol" scare for the past 15 or so years. In reality, fat consumption per person has not changed since the turn of the 20th century. Meanwhile, global meat consumption has increased nearly five-fold since 1950, according to the Worldwatch Institute. Have we missed something here?

Dr. Lothar Wendt, medical director at the Hanau Hospital, Germany (1946-1987) thinks we have. He relates heart disease to high meat intake rather than fat. The evidence certainly is overwhelming when one looks at the correlation of the increased consumption of meat products (animal protein) over the years and the rising curve of heart disease, which increased at the same rate. Cereal and potato consumption has fallen by 45 percent. The problem is, university textbooks on nutrition still disseminate the false theory that "mammals and humans are unable to store protein" (S.M. Rapoport, 1969). "Excessively consumed protein will always be totally metabolized. Even on an almost exclusive meat diet a person will stay healthy" (A. Glatzel, 1976). "No matter in which form the human body is fed, all excess calories are stored as fat" (E. B. Marliss, 1978).

Since 1948, Dr. Wendt has presented breakthrough research in more than 60 publications, explaining that stored protein is responsible for the development of heart disease, cancer and many other conditions. He grouped these together as "protein storage diseases" because he found that when excess animal protein is stored around the basal cell membrane, many nutrients, especially oxygen, are prevented from entering the cell for energy production, thereby allowing the carbohydrates within the cell to ferment into lactic acid. These cells become cancerous. Excess animal protein narrows the liver's storage area, whereby cholesterol stays in the blood and thickens it. Both these conditions cause the heart to pump harder, first in an effort to press the nutrients through the cell membrane and then to push the thick blood through the arteries.

The worst thing to do in this case is prescribe pharmaceutical blood thinners for controlling cholesterol and high blood pressure, says Dr. Otto Bruker, MD, director of Lahnstein Hospital, Germany. He practiced nutrition-oriented medicine for more than 60 years and has records of more than 60,000 patients. His patients were put on a six-week strict vegetarian diet, which reversed the protein overload in all his patients. They did get healed, naturally!

The ill effects of a heavily meat-based diet can be reversed with a whole foods vegetarian diet. However common belief is that we need to have a lot of protein for health and vitality, while our body functions better without the overload.