What Are Glandular Supplements?
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(From The Nature of Animal Healing by Martin Goldstein, DVM)
These concentrates of raw animal glands are the most effective supplements I’ve found to address
imbalances of all the metabolic organs. Though they may sound arcane, in fact the concept of glandulars
was promising enough at the turn of the century for numerous medical studies to be done about them. The
idea behind them was almost embarrassingly simple: that “like cells help like.” The diseased cells of a
human liver, that is, might be boosted by the administration of liver cells from another host. Moreover, the
cells need not be species-specific, only organ-specific, which was to say they could come from the liver of a
cow or pig.
The first great success for “organotherapy,” as it came to be called, was with the thyroid. In 1912, animal
thyroid cells were injected into children suffering from cretinism and myxedema (bloating of the body),
conditions caused by an underfunctioning thyroid; the glandulars brought dramatic improvements. Over the
next several years, other successes were reported. Undersized children benefited from concentrates of
animal pituitary glands; and a test group of children who had reached sexual maturity too quickly were
helped by extracts from animal pineal glands, which apparently supplied the melatonin that healthy pineal
glands secrete in children to inhibit sexual maturity until puberty.
How animal glandulars worked in the human body remained a mystery, however. Frustrated, researchers
began searching for the distinct element that might be the key. In 1922, Frederick G. Banting and his
graduate student Charles Best began focusing on the pancreas. They knew the pancreas was somehow
involved in dispatching blood sugar as energy for the body. They knew that when too much sugar built up
in the blood, it meant that the pancreas wasn’t doing its job, and that for the patient, diabetes would
follow. They also knew that extracts of animal pancreas taken orally seemed to help. But how? Eventually,
they succeeded in isolating insulin from the pancreas of a sheep. They won a Nobel Prize for their work,
and when therapeutic insulin followed, a lot of diabetics were able to live longer and more comfortably as a
result. Still, the breakthrough steered science decisively away from the use of glandulars as they appear in
nature – a decided loss, because a whole pancreas contains various other substances called intrinsic
factors which are discarded in the process of extracting insulin, and these factors are integral to the proper
overall functioning of the pancreas. In retrospect, that may have constituted as much of a wrong turn as
the one that led to vaccines.
One of the few contrarians who resisted the trend was Dr. Royal Lee, the father of glandulars as we use
them today, and the founder of Standard Process Labs, a large nutraceutical supplier in Palmyra,
Wisconsin. In the 1940s, Lee theorized that most organ failures are so-called autoimmune diseases, in
which the immune system mistakenly attacks its own host’s organ. Why would the immune system do
that? Perhaps, Lee theorized, the organ begins to deteriorate naturally, perhaps from malnutrition. When
it does, it sloughs off nucleoproteins – Lee’s term was “protomorphogen,” derived from the Greek and
meaning “primary cell organizer” – that the immune system targets for destruction as useless waste
material. But the nucleoproteins were “marked” genetically as being part of the organ from which they’ve
broken off. Sometimes, as a result, Lee theorized, the immune system turns to attacking the organ itself.
Borrowing from organotherapy, Lee developed a concentrated extract of bovine nucleoproteins that could
be taken up by the body as a sort of “decoy” target – or, in effect, an antigen of very similar proteins, one
which could distract the immune system from the diseased organ, absorb its firepower, and give the organ
time to heal. The more the organ healed, the fewer nucleoproteins it cast off, suggested Lee, and
therefore the less the immune system targeted it. With enough glandular decoy action, the organ would
regain its metabolic balance, the immune system would leave it entirely alone, and – voila, full health
restored. When his findings were published in a medical journal in 1946, Lee was condemned as a
crackpot, and his theories were left to languish, though in the 1950s, Watson and Crick relied on this work
to help them define the structure of DNA. These nucleoproteins contained the genetic markers that were
the cornerstone of their research.
Though he continued to practice into the 1960s, Lee today is one of those forgotten seers, like Arnold
Ehret, whose work will need more than a book like this one to be revived. In the intervening decades,
however, a few curious researchers have experimented with glandulars and made intriguing, if little-
recognized advances. Dr. David Trentham of Beth Israel Hospital and Harvard Medical School has found
that the pain and swelling of rheumatoid arthritis in human patients is eased by doctoring their morning
orange juice with a collagen solution made from chicken cartilage. Since rheumatoid arthritis is now thought
to be an autoimmune disease, the solution fits Lee’s theory perfectly, with the cartilage “distracting” the
immune system from attacking its host’s own cartilage. Trentham’s work has led the way for Eli Lilly, the
huge drug company, to invest tens of millions of dollars in research on animal glandulars to treat multiple
sclerosis (with cow brain protein), as well as rheumatoid arthritis (with the chicken cartilage Trentham
used). In health food stores, meanwhile, a number of over-the-counter glandulars have appeared that
simply use the whole desiccated gland, reduced to a powdered or liquid concentrate, in the hope that the
concentrate will retain the organ’s nucleoproteins in potent form. These are the glandulars that I’ve used
to such good effect. (I’ve found that these preparations in concentrated form are more effective than just
feeding an animal chunks of raw glands.)
My brother and I began more than twenty years ago with glandulars from a company called Nutridyne, now
defunct, which produced an extensive line of them. We found them useful, often dramatically so, and
gradually made them a more and more important part of our therapy. Now we get out glandulars from a
wide array of companies -- including Standard Process. The one I use most often is the adrenal, because
so many health problems in both dogs and cats involve the adrenal’s two realms of stress and
inflammation, and because the adrenal glandular also appears to boost the immune system and counter
allergies and allergic reactions. Indeed, the supplement regimen for almost every sick animal includes one
of many available adrenal supplements.
Ironically, the disease we’ve had many of our greatest successes with is associated with the insulin
producer: the pancreas. In diabetic emergencies, of course, we use injectable insulin, and are grateful to
have it. We continue to use insulin as each patient’s condition dictates, but when a diabetic pet’s blood
starts to regulate itself more normally on metabolic supplements, we start to wean him from it. In doing so,
we’re not just trying to prove a point. Giving insulin gets the blood sugar moving, to be sure, but only
rarely appears to cure diabetes. In most cases, the patient – person or pet – is left utterly dependent on
insulin injections for the rest of his life. By using glandulars and other supplements, we’ve been able to
ease the pancreas back into producing its own insulin again. By fine-tuning the diabetic patient’s other
metabolic organs at the same time, we’ve been able to get his metabolic system working as a whole.
What I’m saying is that we haven’t merely treated diabetes, we’ve stabilized or lowered the dose of insulin
needed – and in some cases even eliminated the need for insulin altogether. In doing so, we’ve restored a
pet to health.
These concentrates of raw animal glands are the most effective supplements I’ve found to address
imbalances of all the metabolic organs. Though they may sound arcane, in fact the concept of glandulars
was promising enough at the turn of the century for numerous medical studies to be done about them. The
idea behind them was almost embarrassingly simple: that “like cells help like.” The diseased cells of a
human liver, that is, might be boosted by the administration of liver cells from another host. Moreover, the
cells need not be species-specific, only organ-specific, which was to say they could come from the liver of a
cow or pig.
The first great success for “organotherapy,” as it came to be called, was with the thyroid. In 1912, animal
thyroid cells were injected into children suffering from cretinism and myxedema (bloating of the body),
conditions caused by an underfunctioning thyroid; the glandulars brought dramatic improvements. Over the
next several years, other successes were reported. Undersized children benefited from concentrates of
animal pituitary glands; and a test group of children who had reached sexual maturity too quickly were
helped by extracts from animal pineal glands, which apparently supplied the melatonin that healthy pineal
glands secrete in children to inhibit sexual maturity until puberty.
How animal glandulars worked in the human body remained a mystery, however. Frustrated, researchers
began searching for the distinct element that might be the key. In 1922, Frederick G. Banting and his
graduate student Charles Best began focusing on the pancreas. They knew the pancreas was somehow
involved in dispatching blood sugar as energy for the body. They knew that when too much sugar built up
in the blood, it meant that the pancreas wasn’t doing its job, and that for the patient, diabetes would
follow. They also knew that extracts of animal pancreas taken orally seemed to help. But how? Eventually,
they succeeded in isolating insulin from the pancreas of a sheep. They won a Nobel Prize for their work,
and when therapeutic insulin followed, a lot of diabetics were able to live longer and more comfortably as a
result. Still, the breakthrough steered science decisively away from the use of glandulars as they appear in
nature – a decided loss, because a whole pancreas contains various other substances called intrinsic
factors which are discarded in the process of extracting insulin, and these factors are integral to the proper
overall functioning of the pancreas. In retrospect, that may have constituted as much of a wrong turn as
the one that led to vaccines.
One of the few contrarians who resisted the trend was Dr. Royal Lee, the father of glandulars as we use
them today, and the founder of Standard Process Labs, a large nutraceutical supplier in Palmyra,
Wisconsin. In the 1940s, Lee theorized that most organ failures are so-called autoimmune diseases, in
which the immune system mistakenly attacks its own host’s organ. Why would the immune system do
that? Perhaps, Lee theorized, the organ begins to deteriorate naturally, perhaps from malnutrition. When
it does, it sloughs off nucleoproteins – Lee’s term was “protomorphogen,” derived from the Greek and
meaning “primary cell organizer” – that the immune system targets for destruction as useless waste
material. But the nucleoproteins were “marked” genetically as being part of the organ from which they’ve
broken off. Sometimes, as a result, Lee theorized, the immune system turns to attacking the organ itself.
Borrowing from organotherapy, Lee developed a concentrated extract of bovine nucleoproteins that could
be taken up by the body as a sort of “decoy” target – or, in effect, an antigen of very similar proteins, one
which could distract the immune system from the diseased organ, absorb its firepower, and give the organ
time to heal. The more the organ healed, the fewer nucleoproteins it cast off, suggested Lee, and
therefore the less the immune system targeted it. With enough glandular decoy action, the organ would
regain its metabolic balance, the immune system would leave it entirely alone, and – voila, full health
restored. When his findings were published in a medical journal in 1946, Lee was condemned as a
crackpot, and his theories were left to languish, though in the 1950s, Watson and Crick relied on this work
to help them define the structure of DNA. These nucleoproteins contained the genetic markers that were
the cornerstone of their research.
Though he continued to practice into the 1960s, Lee today is one of those forgotten seers, like Arnold
Ehret, whose work will need more than a book like this one to be revived. In the intervening decades,
however, a few curious researchers have experimented with glandulars and made intriguing, if little-
recognized advances. Dr. David Trentham of Beth Israel Hospital and Harvard Medical School has found
that the pain and swelling of rheumatoid arthritis in human patients is eased by doctoring their morning
orange juice with a collagen solution made from chicken cartilage. Since rheumatoid arthritis is now thought
to be an autoimmune disease, the solution fits Lee’s theory perfectly, with the cartilage “distracting” the
immune system from attacking its host’s own cartilage. Trentham’s work has led the way for Eli Lilly, the
huge drug company, to invest tens of millions of dollars in research on animal glandulars to treat multiple
sclerosis (with cow brain protein), as well as rheumatoid arthritis (with the chicken cartilage Trentham
used). In health food stores, meanwhile, a number of over-the-counter glandulars have appeared that
simply use the whole desiccated gland, reduced to a powdered or liquid concentrate, in the hope that the
concentrate will retain the organ’s nucleoproteins in potent form. These are the glandulars that I’ve used
to such good effect. (I’ve found that these preparations in concentrated form are more effective than just
feeding an animal chunks of raw glands.)
My brother and I began more than twenty years ago with glandulars from a company called Nutridyne, now
defunct, which produced an extensive line of them. We found them useful, often dramatically so, and
gradually made them a more and more important part of our therapy. Now we get out glandulars from a
wide array of companies -- including Standard Process. The one I use most often is the adrenal, because
so many health problems in both dogs and cats involve the adrenal’s two realms of stress and
inflammation, and because the adrenal glandular also appears to boost the immune system and counter
allergies and allergic reactions. Indeed, the supplement regimen for almost every sick animal includes one
of many available adrenal supplements.
Ironically, the disease we’ve had many of our greatest successes with is associated with the insulin
producer: the pancreas. In diabetic emergencies, of course, we use injectable insulin, and are grateful to
have it. We continue to use insulin as each patient’s condition dictates, but when a diabetic pet’s blood
starts to regulate itself more normally on metabolic supplements, we start to wean him from it. In doing so,
we’re not just trying to prove a point. Giving insulin gets the blood sugar moving, to be sure, but only
rarely appears to cure diabetes. In most cases, the patient – person or pet – is left utterly dependent on
insulin injections for the rest of his life. By using glandulars and other supplements, we’ve been able to
ease the pancreas back into producing its own insulin again. By fine-tuning the diabetic patient’s other
metabolic organs at the same time, we’ve been able to get his metabolic system working as a whole.
What I’m saying is that we haven’t merely treated diabetes, we’ve stabilized or lowered the dose of insulin
needed – and in some cases even eliminated the need for insulin altogether. In doing so, we’ve restored a
pet to health.