Mark Twain once said, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” I have noticed more and more examples of the latter lately–especially in the areas of health and wellness.

Like many young mothers, I became more interested in the subject of nutrition when our children were babies. As a result, they did not have frequent colds and allergies like most of their classmates.

I remember when one of our sons came home from school complaining that something was wrong with his nose. I was checking to see if he had gotten bruised or something when he explained that he couldn’t breathe out of one side. I started laughing before I realized his feelings were hurt by my insensitive reaction to the fact that he didn’t even know what a cold was. This was followed by time out for some extra TLC and vitamin C.

The Adele Davis books were my favorite references during those years and the benefits of her advice were obvious, not only for the children but also for the parents, although we didn’t follow her recommendations as closely for ourselves.

After her death, I noticed that at least one of her books was revised by someone who had bought into the new assumptions about the dangers of cholesterol. It turned out, however, that she was right all along–cholesterol is not the culprit in heart disease. See my Resource page at www.howtostopcolds.com for reference to the book by Dr. Tom Levy, showing that our deficiency of vitamin C is actually at fault.

The books by Adele Davis are rather outdated now, but I still use them as a backup reference because some things do not change. No one can know everything, and many scientific advances have been made since her death.

Unfortunately, Adele Davis was discredited by some and labeled a quack. It is discouraging to see the same kind of things happening today to some of our pioneers in nutrition and wellness.