here's the nutritional spin on one route to problems with edema. i find it interesting that it highlights vitamin B1, which is one of the key nutrients included in the klenner protocol for MS, which specifies B1 supplements on the order of 1.2 grams per day if i remember correctly.
"In 1964 Myron Brin published a classic analysis of the five stages in the development of a vitamin or nutrient deficiency. He illustrated the schema with reference to vitamin B1 (thiamin).
In the first, or preliminary stage, inadequate B1 availability due to faulty diet, malabsorption or abnormal metabolism leads to a greatly reduced urinary B1 loss.
In the second, or biochemical stage, the activity of a key enzyme—transketolase—which is activated by B1, is significantly reduced. Adding B1 to a blood sample from a person at this stage increases his or her transketolase activity.
In the third, or physiologic stage, various general symptoms develop, such as lessened appetite, insomnia, increased irritability, and malaise.
In the fourth, or clinical stage, a constellation of symptoms classically specific to B1 deficiency disease (beri-beri) develops: e.g., intermittent claudication, polyneuritis, bradycardia,
peripheral edema, and ophthalmoplegia (paralysis of eye muscles).
In the fifth, or anatomical stage, histopathological changes due to cellular structural damage are seen, such as cardiac hypertrophy, degeneration of the cerebellar granule layer, and swelling of the microglia.
Although Brin’s five-stage deficiency schema is exemplified with regard to B1, it is in principle applicable to any nutrient, as Brin himself notes. Brin’s schema is especially illuminating with regard to the RDAs, since the “just preventing failure of specific functions” and “just preventing specific deficiency signs” criteria of nutritional requirement, which is the basis of the RDA concept, are only evidenced in the fourth (clinical) and fifth (anatomical) stages of developing nutritional deficiency disease."
i just love that last paragraph
