Weston A. Price, DDS

Weston Price was a dentist from Cleveland who was one of the most important nutritional researchers in history. Dr. Price was president of the scientific division of the American Dental Association during the early 20th century. During his career, Price saw that his patients dental health was getting worse with each passing generation. Not only were their teeth rotting, but his younger patients had teeth and jaws that did not develop properly. Because the children’s facial structure and dental health was so different than their parents’, Price realized that the problems were most likely be due to an environmental factor and not genetics. His theory was that most of the new dental problems that he saw were due to poor nutrition. Specifically, he saw the highly processed “modern” diet of the early 20th century as the major cause of his patient's dental problems.

To test this hypothesis Dr. Price spent the 1930's circling the globe and studying primitive cultures, their diets, and their health. He travelled to remote corners of the world and compared the health of groups eating traditional "primitive" diets to the health of their genetic relations who were living in modern conditions and eating a modern diet. He found that the dental and overall health of the "primitives" was far superior to their more modern neighbors who were of the same genetic background. Their dental structure was better and their rate of cavities was far lower than those of people eating a modernized diet. He also noted that the "primatives" appeared healthier in general were much more resistent to disease.

Price also reported on the apparent health benefits of natural fats and fat soluble vitamins such as vitamins A and D. He noted that the healthiest "primatives" went out of their way to consume fatty foods and that foods high in fat-suluble vitamins were often highly sought after. Price then analyzed typical foods and reported that the traditional diets supplied dramatically higher levels of many measurable nutrients. In addition to previously known vitamins and minerals, Price identified a substance that he called “activator X” which appeared to have remarkable health benefits, especially on teeth and bones. Modern research indicates that “activator X” is probably a form of vitamin K, called vitamin K2. And it appears that Dr. Price was right. Studies now show that vitamin K2 does indeed have great effects on bones --- and it also benefits the heart.

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