Trace Minerals & Health Reviving a Lost Legacy
that he saved many individuals from can- cer by the utilization and reintroduction of Gerald Olarsch trace elements into their diets plus the inclusion of wheat grasses. He also devel- Before he passed away, the late oped an acidophilous culture that further George H. Earp-Thomas, possibly the took care of the bacteria in the body by world’s greatest expert on trace minerals, creating the proper balance of the right bacteria in the body. He was interested in constructed a book for publication. After the acidophilous cultures because around his untimely death, his estate failed to 1910 he spent two years in Paris with recover the manuscript from the typist. Pasteur and he brought back these strains, This has complicated our trailing of the which he later developed commercially. Earp-Thomas story, but it has led us to Gerald Olarsch, the subject of this inter- ACRES U.S.A. Which came first, the view. innoculate for legumes or the human health aspect? Dr. I. Gerald Olarsch is a retired naturopathic physician who has prac- OLARSCH. I think the innoculate for ticed for close to 40 years. Among his legumes came around 1904 or 1905. He many accomplishments, he has worked began to work with inoculation for and studied at the oldest nutritional legumes and some of the early pictures research laboratory in the United states, Earp Labs. He is the inheritor of that we have, I think from 1906, show him the Earp-Thomas legacy, but he has also studied advanced nutrition standing with long stalks of corn that had under Dr. Bernard Jensen, considered by many to be the world’s leading grown 7 or 8 feet high. expert on nutrition and iridology, and also under Dr. Carlton Fredericks ACRES U.S.A. In our work with the late at Pace University. In addition, Dr. Olarsch has worked with patients at Dr. William A. Albrecht, there was always several holistic health clinics throughout the world. He has written wide- a little interplay between him and Earp- ly and been published in many prestigious journals including The Thomas, because Albrecht was ratifying a Townsend Letter for Doctors, Remineralize the Earth, The Sarasota ECO lot of what Earp-Thomas had found Report, and Acres U.S.A. to name but a few. regarding the trace nutrients. Dr. Olarsch started his own journey as a sickly child. His seeking out OLARSCH. That is the case. They inter- true natural health alternatives was born out of necessity many years ago acted with one another on occasion. They and ultimately gave him a new lease on life. His sharing of his many years were not great personal friends. They of research and accumulated wisdom is perhaps the ultimate gift he can were each doing their own things and give. were tied up with their individual research, but when they did get together it was like two brothers getting together and talking over the problems of the soil, the ACRES U.S.A. The late George H. Earp- ed, the lack of trace elements in the body lack of minerals, and on and on. Thomas once suggested that almost all produced deficiency diseases and predict- degenerative metabolic diseases are a ed that these diseases would in the future ACRES U.S.A. How did Earp-Thomas result of either a shortage of, or a marked be unlike anything the Bible ever go about researching how plants took in imbalance of, trace nutrients. Can you described. I believe we have seen this their nutrients. He had a rather unique elaborate on that insight? come to pass in our country. system, didn’t he?
OLARSCH. He firmly believed, and later ACRES U.S.A. He passed away in the OLARSCH. He had a unique system that proved, that the human body could not early 1950s, but he suggested that by the incorporated a better microscope (for sustain itself unless it had all these nutri- end of the 20th century we would begin ents, which are minerals from the earth, in experiencing all kinds of disease anom- Reprinted from the proper proportion in the body. He alies that we had never heard of before. proved this time after time in tests on all kinds of people. He discovered that, true OLARSCH. That’s right. He was very enough, as his theory originally suggest- interested in cancer. It is well documented February 2003 • Vol. 33, No. 2 those days) and getting the innoculate into OLARSCH. Yes. Dr. Earp-Thomas later, a very disappointed, brokenhearted the seeds initially. Then he caused what proved that electrolytes helped cure can- individual. we call a “sprouting situation” and then cer. He was very outspoken about it. In buried these sprouts within the earth with those days there were no health food ACRES U.S.A. His laboratory went up in a mineral solution around them. Later stores, and he mailed his research — in flames, didn’t it? they grew them into the product itself synopsis form — out to doctors across the coming up out of the ground and kept country. He was pointing out the value of OLARSCH. Yes. There was a big fire of them well nourished. minerals in both stopping and getting rid unknown origin at his laboratory. It hap- of cancer. Along came World War II, and pened in the middle of the night when no ACRES U.S.A. Weren’t some of his earli- everything slowed for a while, but after one was there and much of his research est findings regarding the shortage of the war he resumed his research, writings was destroyed at that point. This was trace nutrients, such as cobalt, in New and the mailings to doctors. The FDA around 1949. Jersey? came after him and asked him to stop sending this research out. There were a lot ACRES U.S.A. One question that occurs OLARSCH. Absolutely. Cobalt goes of people under the same gun in those to us is this, is cancer the common denom- back to his beginnings when he bought a days. They used a unique but simple inator for all these metabolic disease con- small farm just over the New Jersey bor- method to bring him down. They took him ditions brought on by trace nutrient defi- der in Pennsylvania. This was sometime to Federal District Court in Newark, New ciency or imbalance? around 1900. They were digging a new Jersey, in 1948. road past his farm. The cows were strain- OLARSCH. I would have to yes, it is the ing their necks through the barbed wire in bottom line. In other words, while we may order to lick the overturned earth. This be fighting other diseases, as we get in fascinated him, and when he finished his “It is well documented bad enough shape we develop cancer. The research at that time, he discovered that it form of cancer is influenced by genetics. was cobalt that the cows were after. The that Earp-Thomas saved amount of cobalt that humans need would ACRES U.S.A. Isn’t there a genetic com- fit on the head of a pin, yet without it, we many individuals from ponent in all disease conditions? are dead. These animals knew better than any humans what we were lacking. cancer by the utilization OLARSCH. Yes. But we can stop it any- where along the line by taking trace ele- ACRES U.S.A. And yet the research that and reintroduction of trace ments, that’s for sure. If the trace elements came out of Iowa in the ’30s and ’40s are not there, then there is all hell to pay seemed to indicate that our hybrids were elements into their diets sooner or later, whether it starts out as a not picking up cobalt, for which reason plus the inclusion of simple skin rash, or a minor problem with we were having a great deal of brucel- the eyes or lungs, or what have you. losis, Bang’s disease, or what is undulant wheat grasses.” fever in humans. ACRES U.S.A. The health food stores are full of trace minerals. They are usually in OLARSCH. Dr. Earp-Thomas knew this a gluconate or some a-t-e form, such as long ago. The research he did proved that ACRES U.S.A. They tried to shut him calcium carbonate and so on. Are these these ailments were due to things such as down through the courts? really easily assimilated by the body? the lack of cobalt. I can tell you, to bring this up to date, that relatively recently we OLARSCH. It was a long process, but he OLARSCH. In most cases, no, and in took a herd of goats in California and actually won in court. As he was walking most cases it is overload, too, on top of it. found that half the goat herd got the trace out of the courthouse, coming from the Not only is the form of the trace minerals elements and half did not. The half of the judge’s chambers, along came the FDA not right for the human body to accept, herd that did not get trace elements ended representatives. The head guy congratu- but in addition, it is too high a dose for the up with lung disease. lated Dr. Earp-Thomas on winning his body. If you are taking 50 milligrams of case and said, “I assume that you are zinc, you may as well not take any, ACRES U.S.A. What other animal going to try to continue to advertise your because 50 milligrams can do as much research did he do? minerals as a treatment for cancer?” Earp- harm as good. That is why we say trace Thomas answered, “Of course — I won in amounts, trace elements, trace minerals. OLARSCH. He did research with mice, court, didn’t I?” The FDA representative We are talking about them in their essen- chimpanzees, lots of different animals. said to him, “Well, you won in court this tial form and in very minute quantities. For his day, his research was quite wide- time, but can you afford to do that year spread, and he just kept his nose to the after year? How much did it cost you?” ACRES U.S.A. Are you talking about grindstone, so to speak. He really was a Earp-Thomas said that it had cost him size as well — is that a micron size? self-driven, hard-working individual who $100,000 — which is like a million dol- was not happy unless he was doing lars today. The FDA Representative said, Reprinted from research all the time. “Can you afford to do that every year, Dr. Earp-Thomas?” — and with that they ACRES U.S.A. Yet the Food and Drug walked out the door, they didn’t even wait Administration brought him down, didn’t for an answer. This kind of broke his back, February 2003 • Vol. 33, No. 2 they? and Earp-Thomas died not too many years OLARSCH.Yes. With the electrolytes we ACRES U.S.A. Would that be synony- Reprinted from are down to the crystalloid size almost. mous with “ion?”
ACRES U.S.A. What does that mean? OLARSCH. Yes, but the ion itself is a stage between colloidal and crystalloid. February 2003 • Vol. 33, No. 2 OLARSCH. Crystalloid means it is the Ion is kind of in the middle. Crystalloid is stage beyond colloidal. Colloidal minerals more refined, because in ionization you regarding these elements. I remember one cannot penetrate the cell walls, according take a colloidal mineral and give it an of my early lectures was with Adele Davis to any medical dictionary; therefore, they electrical charge, which in most cases up in upstate New York. We had a heck of can either do more harm than good and/or means nothing. a lecture, and the turnout was much more slowly wash out of the body. Most of the than expected. I lectured about the lab, the time these minerals in colloidal form can ACRES U.S.A. How did you become products, and why trace minerals were create problems along the way. heir-apparent to the work, philosophy and important, and then she came out and Crystalloid-form minerals are accepted findings of Dr. Earp-Thomas? spoke. It was a wonderful evening that into the body and go immediately across really has stayed in my mind all these the cell barrier to do the most good. This OLARSCH. To begin with, I worked in years. is a very important distinction from your the lab itself and helped develop long- standard minerals. You cannot accomplish range plans for product production such ACRES U.S.A. What did she have to much with these larger minerals. It is as as the acidophilus culture that they pro- present? though you see you have an iron deficien- duced at that time, and the wheat grasses cy and you chew on a nail. You need the and trace elements themselves — that is, OLARSCH. She wrote a book called minerals in their assimilable, microscopic, the electrolytes. I got more involved as Let’s Get Well. She wrote about vitamins crystalloid form. time went on, in talking with people and what they accomplished through
Principal Elements in the Human Body
Element—Symbol % Atoms % Weight Uses
Organic Elements Hydrogen — H 62.00 9.70 water & most molecules Oxygen — O 26.00 65.00 water & most molecules Carbon — C 10.00 18.60 all organic molecules Nitrogen — N 1.50 3.20 protein, nucleic acid
Major Elements Calcium — Ca .21 .80 bones, teeth, nerve, blood Phosphorus — P .21 .00 bones, teeth, nucleic acid Potassium — K .06 .40 membrane, nerve, muscle Sodium — Na .06 .20 membrane, nerve, muscle Sulfur — S .05 .04 protein Chlorine — C l.00 4.20 membrane, water absorption Magnesium — Mg .03 .06 enzyme cofactor, ATP
Minor (Trace) Elements Iron — Fe .0005 .007 oxygen transport Iodine — I .0000003 .0002 thyroid hormone Silicon — Si n/a n/a membrane Fluorine — F n/a n/a calcium migration Copper — Cu n/a n/a iron absorption, blood regulation Manganese — Mn n/a n/a bone, tendon, nerve enzymes Zinc — Zn n/a n/a enzymes, insulin, endocrine Selenium — Se n/a n/a vitamin E, detoxification Cobalt — Co n/a n/a vitamin B12 Molybdenum — Mo n/a n/a detoxification enzymes Chromium — Cr n/a n/a glucose metabolism Tin — Sn n/a n/a [unknown] Boron — B n/a n/a [unknown] Nickel — Ni n/a n/a enzyme activation Vanadium — Va n/a n/a cholesterol, fat metabolism nutrition. It didn’t offer any long-term out on everything good that the chicken OLARSCH. To begin with, we are chal- cure because it did not discuss the trace can give back to us. This goes for any ani- lenged on our own level to inform a lot of elements and how they rebuild the body, mals, for that matter. I read recently how the local farmers of the difference in the but it did help people with their problems chickens are kept in confinement, they are production of animals. This is especially immediately. That was very important for debeaked, they are packed tight in little true here in Florida, where the sun bakes that time. It made the connection between metal cages where they can’t even turn the soil, literally, and where you have nutrients and health. Anybody who had a around, and they suffer from diseases — it mostly sand. Dr. Earp-Thomas proved real product, or an idea that worked — is a shame. that you could grow good crops and good people like Moxie or Earp-Thomas — grass by adding back the right nutrients were just shut off from the public by the ACRES U.S.A. That’s cruelty to animals. over a period of several crop seasons. In FDA. fact, here in Florida, he grew cabbage, and OLARSCH. It certainly is. I understand the leaves were so big that I don’t think ACRES U.S.A. This would include peo- that one of the big companies recently you could see the ground below. It was so ple like Victor Irons and so on? promised to do away with confinement for plentiful, and it was all organic. In the the chickens they purchase from growers. winter, when growing citrus crops, frost OLARSCH. Victor Irons actually studied So it is getting a little better, but, my God, did not ruin the crops that were organical- at the Earp-Thomas lab in the 1903s, and it has taken all these years to begin to ly grown by Earp-Thomas. We’ve contin- so did Ann Wigmore. They got most of bring back our senses. ued with this work because there is a qual- their ideas out of that lab. ity there that people are willing to pay a ACRES U.S.A. Of course the most premium for. It tastes better, it looks bet- ACRES U.S.A. Ann Wigmore is the one prominent grass that we have is corn. The ter, it’s absolutely fantastic. who promotes wheat grass? work that was done back in the ’40s, cov- ering 10 states with 4,000 samples, indi- ACRES U.S.A. How did he return trace OLARSCH. Yes. She came out of the lab cated that the nutrient or the mineral minerals to a deficient soil? with the idea that wheat grass could cure uptake was literally demolished by the the world. Victor Irons was infatuated hybrid seed. OLARSCH. There were several methods, with the products and came out, but probably the most common one roughly speaking, with his own ver- was in a spray tank filled with sions. They both did fine, and they Important Electrolytes in Body Fluids water. They sprayed it out over the both did a lot of good helping peo- crops because he found out that the ple. Sodium chloride NaCl Na+Cl- leaves ingested a fair amount of the Potassium chloride KCl K+Cl- elements right there, plus the plant ++ - ACRES U.S.A. This brings us to Calcium chloride CaCl2 Ca 2Cl took what ran off into the soil the anatomy of grass. What is it Magnesium chloride MgC Mg++2Cl- below. l2 + - about grass? Is it able to pick up the Sodium bicarbonate NaHCO3 Na HCO3 trace nutrients in a small form that Disodium phosphate Na HPO 2Na+HPO - ACRES U.S.A. Did he develop this 2 4 + - 4 human beings can assimilate? Sodium sulfate Na2SO4 2Na SO4 formula, and is it still available? OLARSCH. That is the main OLARSCH. It is available in large thrust. There are other nutrients and quantities for the farmer who wants factors in grass that make it an exception- OLARSCH. Hybrids are incapable of to grow crops. We don’t advertise it a lot al nutrient for the body, including the taking up nutrients or trace elements from because we work so much in the human presence chlorophyll, which is very help- the soil. area now. ful to the body. Everything that they are discovering lately, we already knew in the ACRES U.S.A. Let’s fast forward now. ACRES U.S.A. What are you doing in the 1930s from the grasses themselves and We’ve got the Bt corn, which is producing human realm? the research we had done on them. We fusaria mold. It is corn without trace min- knew of the phytonutrients. The basis of erals and also transports a mold to the ani- OLARSCH. We are working with people our research is that the grasses are an mal — what do you anticipate will be the here at the lab who come in for their nutri- essential part of human health for rebuild- consequence? ents, especially the minerals. They are ing, not just cleansing, and they do play a people who are sick with anything from role in detoxifying and cleansing the OLARSCH. The consequence will be lung diseases to various forms of cancer. body, but their major role is in rebuilding. that these animals actually will wind up It works out very well. We work with a The wheat grasses do a wonderful job. with cancerous conditions, as humans local naturopathic physician. In fact, our now do, if they live long enough. If not, physician and I are working with a woman ACRES U.S.A. Then grass in the pasture their genetic pattern is set for it, so that right now who was diagnosed with lung would be essential for the herbivorous they carry the cancer, but it is undiscov- cancer about seven years ago. She’s about animal, wouldn’t it? ered, and the animal is then slaughtered for food. OLARSCH. Absolutely. Animals that are Reprinted from penned up and not allowed to go out into ACRES U.S.A. You have picked up on the yard are not healthy. Let’s use the case what Earp-Thomas did. What are you of a chicken. If a chicken can’t go out into doing now? the yard and scratch for bugs and eat some February 2003 • Vol. 33, No. 2 of the grass and flowers, they are missing 82 years old. She is doing quite well. making these trace elements by putting through the digestive system? What hap- She’s perky, and she is still alive. That’s together all the minerals at once, you pens? the bottom line, she is alive and doing don’t wind up with an electrolyte formula. well. We owe a great deal of this success That’s number one. The second thing is OLARSCH. They do not go through the to the trace minerals. that these minerals go through both an digestive system. The trace elements go electrical process and a vortex-type of directly through the bloodstream and are ACRES U.S.A. There are trace minerals, process before they are finished and come filtered off into the different areas of our and then there are trace minerals. Science out as electrolytes. It is a complex bodies where they are needed. Most of us tells us there are eight essential, 14 essen- process, but it works very well. Once we need these nutrients heavily in the pan- tial, 22 essential, and so on, depending have it down pat, it is easier for the scien- creas and the liver, but also some go to the upon who you read at what stage of the tists in our lab to keep the electrolytes brain. You know all of the problems we game. How many are essential? Are they flowing. have been having with the cell phones and all essential? the EMF waves, all of this is due to the electrical energy produced in a negative OLARSCH. In reality, they are all essen- manner from portable phones. tial. The ones that we utilize, of which there are 11, are drawn from a combina- “If a chicken can’t go ACRES U.S.A. Are you saying that tion of elements that we find in nature. standing in a restaurant talking for 20 They are exact, and we can blend them out into the yard and minutes on a cellular phone may not be together. For instance, we use cobalt, but scratch for bugs and eat the greatest thing for people? we do not use iron. some of the grass and OLARSCH. Definitely not. The only ACRES U.S.A. Why is that? thing that we know that will help with flowers, it is missing out some of the damage from EMF waves and OLARSCH. Because the iron is not basi- the like are the electrolytes, because they cally an organic mineral in itself, but the on everything good that restrengthen the good cells in the body. cobalt is. The cobalt will bring back both This becomes a very important factor in the iron in the body and the B12 factor. the chicken can give the long term for all of us. We just cannot The iron becomes available once the handle the kind of waves coming from cobalt is where it should be. back to us.” stray electrical wires, from cell phones, whatever it may be. The only thing we ACRES U.S.A. What are the minerals know that can help properly keep cells in that you zero in on? good order are the electrolytes them- ACRES U.S.A. You don’t just dump them selves. OLARSCH. I don’t have them all in front in and mix them, then? of me, but off the top of my head: copper, ACRES U.S.A. What about microwaves? zinc, selenium, cobalt. It is as I said with OLARSCH. No. If you do that, you don’t the cobalt and iron, certain minerals make end up with electrolytes — even though OLARSCH. Microwaves are very bad. I others available. When the original formu- they may be proportioned correctly, which have some reports — one in particular la was put together, certain minerals is half the battle. from Switzerland — about a very brilliant would not take as electrolytes. They were scientist who pointed out how bad opposite and opposing in nature of mag- ACRES U.S.A. You used the term vortex, microwaves are, and how people then netic force. We found that the electrolytes, which takes us back to Rudolf Steiner and tried to discredit him. once we got them in our bodies, would his approach in his biodynamic exercises. absorb the opposing minerals, just as we Is there a relationship there? ACRES U.S.A. Microwaves are bad for had found that plants would. our food, for the people in the room, or OLARSCH. I would say so. Within what? ACRES U.S.A. How do you process the nature there is a relationship of magnetic trace minerals, and how do you select the energy force. We know that the earliest OLARSCH. Both. It is bad for food, in ones that are essential for bringing in the people walked on the earth barefoot in the terms of changing the molecular structure rest of them? grasses, which brought up an electrical of the protein in the same way that people charge, because the earth is constantly have been talking about the genetically OLARSCH. The essential minerals are being recharged from lightning. In those modified corn and soybeans. The same the trace elements that will work as a days, people generally remained healthy thing happens with foods that are magnetic energy force, and these will help — between eating properly and their bare- microwaved, as the genetic structure is us absorb the other minerals that are not foot energy flow. The magnetic force from changed, the protein factor is changed part of the trace light spectrum, that is the the earth is in relationship to the magnetic completely, and you wind up with some- liquid, crystalloid electrolytes. Part of the force from the moon and the stars; it is a thing that may play a role down the line in process is, once we have those minerals whole interplanetary methodology of giving you cancer, among other things. — and they must be exact and in the right interacting nutrients that really carries us proportion to each other — they are out into the space field. Reprinted from poured into a vat over a period of days in order to come together. Certain minerals ACRES U.S.A. Do the trace minerals in are added on certain days and at certain the form that you prepare them go direct- times. If you try to rush the process of ly into the bloodstream, or do they go February 2003 • Vol. 33, No. 2 ACRES U.S.A. Is food digestible after it produce more enzymes and acids to break OLARSCH. There is enough available to has been microwaved? the foods down much more effectively. get people started. If people want more information on Earp-Thomas or the elec- OLARSCH. As far as we are eating it, it ACRES U.S.A. How important is it to trolytes, they can contact us at our web- is digestible, but it does not work in the stay within that 30-minute time frame? site