In my doorway stood Joseph Pizzorno, ND-to this day, a lifelong friend and colleague-along with a group of naturopathic physicians.
While I was still at the university, however, I answered a knock on my office door one memorable day in 1977.
Functional medicine professional#
It was my honor and privilege to meet Dr Pauling for the first time at this event, and this encounter was the beginning of a long-term professional relationship, which ultimately led to my work at the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine in Palo Alto, California, in the early 1980s. The conference took place in Seattle, Washington, and Linus Pauling, PhD, 2-time Nobel Laureate in chemistry and peace, was the keynote speaker. In 1975, I attended the inaugural meeting of the Northwest Academy of Preventive Medicine, which was founded by Leo Bolles, MD. These new opportunities brought me into contact with a number of very interesting groups that would change my life and career forever.Īn Invitation, a Life-changing Introduction, and an Open Door I suddenly found myself being described as a nutritionist, when in reality my training and background made me more a clinical biochemist and environmental scientist.
My visibility was rising, and I was invited to speak at a number of professional meetings. The publication of this work generated significant interest from the medical and nutrition research communities, and even among the general public. Our work, which took place between 19, revealed how vitamin E protects red blood cells against damage associated with aging we were among the first investigators to report a mechanistic link between vitamin E and a health benefit in humans. My student and I decided to evaluate the effect of vitamin E on the human red blood cell in both controlled in vitro studies and in vivo human intervention trials. 1 With additional research, they discovered that the process of purifying fat removed a fat-soluble family of nutrient molecules, which they later called vitamin E or tocopherols. Why this name? When vitamin E was discovered in 1922 by Herbert Evans, MD, and his research assistant, Katharine Bishop, MD, at the University of California, Berkeley, their studies indicated that rats fed a diet containing highly purified fat were unable to successfully produce live offspring. I knew very little about vitamin E at that time, only that it was an interesting family of molecules with the name tocopherol, which-from the Greek-means “to bear offspring.”
One of my first research students was interested in doing work with vitamin E. In 1971, I took my first “real job.” I was an assistant professor of chemistry and environmental science at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington, where I had the opportunity to teach a number of different chemistry-related subjects, including biochemistry and environmental science. Humble Beginnings, an Open Mind, and Unexpected Attention
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