Medicine: Antimetabolites

Though many a New Englander will be outraged and incredulous to hear it, starting a meal with raw clams is risky. Clams contain a powerful enzyme that destroys much of the vitamin B-1 in other foods. (If you must eat clams, have them cooked —it destroys the enzyme—or compensate with extra B-1 in the rest of the meal.)

This advice to seafood lovers was given last week in the M.I.T. Technology Review, which reported that biochemists have launched a new study of antimetabolites, the nutritional mischiefmakers. Branded with tongue-twisting names like alphatocopherol quinone and pantoyltaurine, the newly discovered substances, present in common foods, have been found to attack vitamins and amino acids. Other findings:

¶ Enriched white bread is a better source of iron than whole wheat; the phytic acid in the whole grain makes much of its iron indigestible.

¶ When you take aspirin, take some vitamin K (found in alfalfa, kale, hog liver, etc.) with it; aspirin depletes the body’s K supply.

¶Coffee is mildly hostile to the vitamins biotin and inositol—but it would take more coffee than any human being could drink to produce a serious deficiency.