Ludvig Hektoen, professor of pathology, University of Chicago, says in part:
“In my opinion, no attention whatsoever should be paid to the claims advanced in favor of ‘Sanatogen’ as food and as medicine, because the statements made in the advertisements of this product are extravagant, misleading and quackish.”
J. H. Long, professor of chemistry and director of chemical laboratories, Northwestern University Medical School, expresses the following opinion:
“With every reading of the advertising literature of the Sanatogen Company I am more and more impressed by the gross exaggeration of the claims made for this mixture of casein and sodium glycerophosphate. Cow’s milk contains 31⁄2 to 4 per cent. of casein, associated with soluble phosphates. It is absurd to think that this casein after precipitation from the milk has a greater nutritive value than it has in its native condition. Casein, at best, is probably less valuable as a food than are certain other proteins, because of its lack of some of the amino groups essential in tissue building, and the addition of a glycerophosphate cannot supply this deficiency.
“This is not the first attempt to exploit casein preparations. The earlier efforts failed in practice because they were based on a wrong conception concerning the physiologic value and importance of this protein. The assumption that in the case of Sanatogen a ‘definite organic combination’ with the glycerophosphate is formed cannot be taken seriously by chemists. We have witnessed many such efforts to palm off mixtures as definite organic compounds, and in this way to claim for them a value in excess of that which they actually possess.”
What one dollar will buy in food energy! A comparison of the caloric values of sanatogen, cow’s milk, sugar and wheat flour. Based on the table accompanying this article.
Graham Lusk, professor of physiology, Cornell University Medical College, after calling attention to the falsity of the claim that Sanatogen is “a life-sustaining agent in disease,” says:
“If one considers the casein content alone, the dose of Sanatogen recommended in the circular would furnish, at best, about what is contained in a pint of milk, or one-fourth of the total of the protein necessities of the body—using a low protein requirement. That sodium glycerophosphate has any distinctly beneficial physiologic action has never, to my knowledge, been shown.