By 1952, Dr. Ernst T. Krebs, Jr., a biochemist in San Francisco,
had advanced the theory that cancer, like scurvy and pellagra, is
not caused by some kind of mysterious bacterium, virus, or toxin,
but is merely a deficiency disease aggravated by the lack of an
essential food compound in modern-man's diet. He identified
this compound as part of the nitriloside family which occurs
abundantly in nature in over twelve-hundred edible plants and
found virtually in every part of the world. It is particularly
prevalent in the seeds of those fruits in the Prunus Rosacea family
(bitter almond, apricot, blackthorn, cherry, nectarine, peach, and
plum), but also contained in grasses, maize, sorghum, millet,
cassava, linseed, apple seeds, and many other foods that, generally,
have been deleted from the menus of modern civilization.
It is difficult to establish a clear-cut classification for a
nitriloside. Since it does not occur entirely by itself but rather is
found in foods, it probably should not be classified as a food. Like
sugar, it is a food component or a food factor. Nor can it be
classified as a drug inasmuch as it is a natural, non-toxic,
water-soluble substance entirely normal to and compatible with
human metabolism. The proper name for a food factor that
contains these properties is vitamin. Since this vitamin normally is
found with the B-complex, and since it was the seventeenth such
substance to be isolated within this complex, Dr. Krebs identified
it as vitamin B17.
He said:
Can the water-soluble non-toxic nitrilosides properly be
described as food? Probably not in the strict sense of the word. They
are certainly not drugs per se.... Since the nitrilosides are neither
food nor drug, they may be considered as accessory food factors.
Another term for water-soluble, non-toxic accessory food factors is
vitamin.(1)
