Some “nutritionists” and other fringe practitioners use a nonsensical urine/saliva test as the basis for evaluating a person’s health and prescribing dietary supplements to fix it. The most visible modern proponent of this test was Gary Martin, who, during the 1980s, operated the American College of Nutripathy, a nonaccredited correspondence school that granted “degrees” in nutrition. One of the school’s brochures described nutripathy as “the condensation of most all natural healing and counseling techniques available today . . . . the basics ‘boiled’ from literally hundreds of different therapies and techniques.”
Martin claimed that nutripathic tests could detect “imbalances which, if left to mature, must ultimately manifest as some form of disease process.” and “discover the root cause of the disease while it is still in the prediagnosable stage.”
The most notable of these tests was the urine/saliva test developed about more than 50 years ago by Carey Reams (1910-1985), a self-proclaimed biophysicist who was prosecuted during the 1970s for practicing medicine without a license.Reams, who also claimed to be guided by God, devised “a mathematical formula for perfect health, based on the biophysical frequencies of living matter.” The formula, which Martin called “your Nutripathic Portrait” or “your NutriPathic Profile,” looks like this:
1.5 6.4 / 6.4 7 1 3 / 3
According to Martin’s book, Nutripathy: The Final Solution to Your Health Dilemma, the first three numbers represent sugars excreted in the urine and the acidity (pH) of the urine and saliva, and indicate how much “energy input” you have. The other numbers, said to represent your “mineral salts index, urine debris index and nitrate nitrogens over the ammoniacal nitrogens index,” indicate how much energy your metabolism is using. “A low energy input and high energy drain,” says the book, “means degeneration, rot, decay and death.” To fix these alleged problems, Martin and his followers offered a large variety of supplement products. The full text of a slightly modified edition titled Nutripathy: A Natural Solution to your Health Dilemma can be accessed online.
Reams testing and its associated trappings are utter nonsense. Blood and most tissues in the body have a pH of about 7.4, which is slightly alkaline. Blood pH is maintained within a narrow range by homeostatic mechanisms that involve the blood, kidneys, and lungs. Most disease states do not significantly affect blood pH. Those that do, such as respiratory failure and diabetic ketoacidosis, would be diagnosed with tests of the blood, not saliva or urine. Diet can alter the pH of urine, which can be important in preventing kidney stones. However, the pH of the blood will still remain within its narrow range. Saliva tests only measure the pH of the mouth, which is influenced by diet and does not reflect either the pH or the health status of the rest of the body. For all of these reasons, it is senseless to use saliva pH as a basis for recommending diets or dietary supplements.
For many years, Martin did business as Health Watchers System. His “graduates” include:
- Michael Biamonte, PhD, who operates the Biamonte Center for Clinical Nutrition in New York City. For many years, his Web site claimed that he developed “nutritional programs for HIV and Cancer that may become one of the most important discoveries of the century.”
- Lawrence Borawski, ND, of Coral Springs, Florida, who lectures on nutrition and markets products he claims will enable users to lose weight.
- R. Dale Comeaux, CBP, NLM, LMT, a massage therapist from Louisiana who included training in iridology, reiki, and “nutitional blood analysis” in his credential list.
- Sal D’Onofrio, DN, DD, who operates Health Guardians in Redondo Beach. California. He calls his urine/saliva test “Nutri Energy Systems Analysis” and states that it determines “digestive efficiency.” During the late 1990s, D’Onofrio appeared in a magazine ad for an herbal “intestinal cleansing” product called UnDo, which he claimed would help people who “suffer from poor digestion and elimination, fatigue, stiff joints, mood swings, poor skin.” The ad identified him as “Dr. Sal D’Onofrio” and showed him in a white coat with a stethoscope draped around his neck.
- Larry DiSantis, CN, who founded and operates New Eden School of Natural Health & Herbal Studies. Prior to that he was a technical representative of Now Food, a minister at a Chicago area church, through which he taught a “total health approach,” and a nutritional counselor at an Italian clinic and an American health food store.
- Chip Huge, PhD, who coached “natural health and wellbeing” in Bend, Oregon.
- Stephen Huer, who practiced in Cupertino, California, was “Overseer” of Alchemy Ministries aka Cocoon Nutrition. His Web site contained an “informed consent” form that required clients to agree that (a) “urine and saliva specimens are screenings for research purposes only” and (b) they would never take legal action against Heuer.
- Rita M. Holgers-Awana, ND, of Lombard, Illinois, who whose online resumé states that she practiced electrodiagnosis (with a Dermatron device) for many years and was vice president of the American Society of Dowsers.
- Joanna Jarvis, BS, CNC, who practices nutrition and ayurveda in Santa Cruz, California.
- Gregory A Kreutzer, DN, developer of “Bio-Energy Metabolic Efficiency Analysis” and founder of Natural Health Resources. In 1999, his Web site stated that there were 3,000 urine testers worldwide and that they could earn up to $1,000 per day.
- Julie Keegan, who practiced acupuncture and Oriental medicine in Clinton, Washington.
- Donald Mantell, MD, who operated the Wholistic Health Clinic in Sarver, Pennsylvania, is said to have received BS and master’s degrees in the early 1980s.
- Jan Noble, DN, MScM, who operates the Holistic Life Institute of Learning and the Academy for Reiki Masters Training, in Modesto, California. Her “MScM” credential is from the University of Metaphysical Sciences in Studio City, California. In an e-mail to me, she stated: “My studies with the American College of Nutripathy concerned nutrition only. I did not study the urine/saliva material (It was not required), only the home-study portion of the school that offered training in nutrition, food chemistry, supplementation, organic gardening, reflexology, flower essences, homeopathy, and exercise.”
- Marcelle Shane, who operated German House Reflexology in Sarnie, Ontario (Canada). Her Web site offered reflexology, reiki and “biological immunity analysis.”
- Patricia A. Starr, CN, who practices as a “nutritionist” in Hotchkiss, Colorado.
| Nutritional Resources, of Warsaw, Indiana, offers a $290 “Basic Reams Test Kit” that it claims “is capable of determining up to 2,600 different health conditions by analyzing chemical, digestive and nutritional imbalances within the body.” |  |
The urine/saliva test is often referred to as RBTI testing. (RBTI stands for Reams Biological Theory of Ionization.) The A Gathering of RBTI Web site, operated by Rex Harrill, provides additional history, comments about proponents, and descriptions of variations of the test.
This article was revised on November 8, 2016.
