WHAT SCIENCE STILL DOES NOT KNOW ABOUT FOODS? SPECIAL DIETS

SPECIAL DIETS 

Special diets can be of value for certain specific health problems. For example, a protein-free diet may be prescribed in some cases of severe kidney damage; a high-protein diet in some cases of hepatitis; a high- residue diet in cases of atonic constipation; a low-fat diet in certain diseases of the liver and gallbladder; a low-purine diet in gout; a low- sodium diet in high blood pressure, congestive heart failure, and toxemia of pregnancy; a bland diet for ulcer, gastritis, and hiatus hernia; a gluten- free diet for celiac disease and cure. 

Special dietary treatment is also an important part of the overall therapy in many cases of diabetes. Whenever a special diet may be of value, it should, of course, be prescribed by a physician on the basis of the patient's individual needs.

WHAT SCIENCE STILL DOES NOT KNOW ABOUT FOODS 

Every physician and scientist concerned with nutrition knows well that despite all that has been learned, much more remains to be. At any time, some fundamental new finding-of a previously unknown vitamin or other essential nutrient-may be made. 

At the risk of being repetitious, we would like to emphasize again that every advance to date has underscored the one fact: except in special instances, the best and healthiest diet is a balanced and generously varied diet. Nature distributes her largesse. We can be most certain of benefitting from it by making use of many rather than limited numbers of foodstuffs. Almost certainly, if we do this, we will be enjoying the values of still-undiscovered vital elements.

WEIGHT CONTROL 

WHILE THERE are nutritional diseases due to deprivation-rickets, scurvy, and others-by far the most common nutritional disease in this country is one that results from abundance. Overweight, affecting one in every five Americans, is a mammoth, chronic, frustrating problem. 

It can be called, justly, the number-one health hazard of our time. It's a remediable problem-but not, unfortunately, the way most of us choose to go about attacking it. To a much lesser extent, underweight constitutes a health problem. And the correction of both is an important function of preventive medicine. 

FADS AND FALLACIES, Vitamins nutrition, fish and celery for body health and prevention of diseases

According to Food and Drug Administration studies involving regular market basket sampling, foods available at ordinary groceries and supermarkets contain ample quantities of vitamins. Many food additives are now in use. Times and distances involved in getting products from farm to consumer are often great, and additives are used by processors to maintain quality. In some cases, they are used to improve quality or add some advantage not found in the natural state. Thus, some foods are fortified with vitamins and minerals.

Flavoring agents may be employed to add taste appeal. Preservatives have to be used for some foods that would otherwise be spoiled by organisms or would undergo undesirable chemical changes before use. Emulsifiers may be added to bakery goods to achieve fineness of grain; and stabilizers and thickeners, such as pectin and vegetable gums, may be used for maintaining texture and body. A federal food additives law requires that additives be tested and proved safe for consumption before they may be used. Much remains to be learned about additives-and much, too, about safe use of pesticides, but on a realistic basis, with a growing population, we need both additives and pesticides and must learn to use them to best advantage.

FADS AND FALLACIES

 Perhaps no other area of human concern is as surrounded with fads and fallacies as nutrition. We have had blacks trap molasses and wheat germ offered as virtual panaceas and, more recently, vinegar and honey. Although no food has any special health virtue all its own, it would be hard to find any that at some time or other has not been touted as such. Do oysters, raw eggs, lean meat, and olives increase a man's potency?

Hardly, they have their nutrient values but confer no special potency benefits. Are fish and celery brain foods? The idea could have arisen because brain and nerve tissue are rich in phosphorus, and fish provides phosphorus-containing materials. But so do meat, poultry, milk, and eggs. And celery, it turns out, has relatively little phosphorus. 

Are white eggs healthier than brown? The fact is that the breed of hen determines eggshell color, and color has nothing to do with nutritive value. Some magical powers once attributed to foods have been explained by scientific research. For example, lemons and limes were once considered panaceas for scurvy; it is their vitamin C content, of course, which did the work. Rice polishing was indeed fine for preventing beriberi, but solely because of their vitamin B1 content. 

Goiter was once treated with sea sponge, and the seeming magic stemmed not from something unique about sponge, but from its content of iodine. Food myths arise, too, from distortions of scientific fact. Thus, carrots considered to be good for the eyes.

They are-in cases of vitamin A deficiency. The yellow pigment of carrots, carotene, is converted by low body into vitamin A, which is needed to produce a pigment for the retina of the eye. Incidentally, carotene is plentiful, too, in green vegetables where the yellow color is masked by chlorophyll. Food fads and fallacies might be amusing were it not for the danger that they can interfere with the selection of a proper diet. 

THE IRON-DEFICIENCY PROBLEM And the Causes in Our Body system

THE IRON-DEFICIENCY PROBLEM

 A deficiency of iron in the diets of young girls and women is a cause of growing concern. Iron deficiency can produce anemia, and the need for iron is universal. Generally, there is no problem in men, who require only 10 milligrams (1/3,000 of an ounce) of iron a day to maintain adequate body stores. 

But menstruating and pregnant women require 18 milligrams a day, and dietary analyses indicate that many adolescent girls and menstruating women have an iron intake of only 10 milligrams a day. Some studies reveal iron-deficiency anemia in as many as 60 percent of pregnant women. The problem centers around the fact, that overall iron content of foods on the market runs around 10 milligrams for every 2,000 calories.

Thus, unless she is paying particular attention to iron, a woman consuming 2,000 calories a day will not be getting adequate amounts of the mineral. The fact is that 50 to 60 percent of iron in the diet comes from cereals and meats, with nearly equal contributions from each, but the proportion of cereals and meats consumed by women varies widely. 

Whenever weight is a problem, too, the tendency is to reduce consumption of cereal products. Most meats provide 2 to 3 milligrams of iron per 3-ounce serving. Dry beans and nuts provide about 5 milligrams per cup. Most leafy green vegetables contain from 1 to 4 milligrams per cup.

Egg yolk, whole grain and enriched bread, potatoes, oysters, dried fruits, and peas are other good sources. There are on the market a number of prepared breakfast foods fortified with high levels of iron; some provide 8 to 10 milligrams per one-ounce serving. The use of iron-fortified food items when necessary to achieve adequate iron intake can be an important aid to health. For some women with high iron requirements-during pregnancy or because of abnormal menstrual losses-physicians may need to prescribe supplemental iron preparations.

WHEN TO EAT? TIMING MATTERS

WHEN TO EAT

Meal patterns generally are dictated by custom, work schedule, and personal preference. Most people eat a light breakfast, moderate lunch, and hearty evening meal. If you have a preference, however, for more but smaller meals, there is certainly nothing wrong with eating that way. 

In fact, we believe that, where feasible, more but lighter meals are desirable since they are easier to digest and put fewer loads on the body. The fact is that there is a limit to what the body's chemistry can take on at any one time. 

One can add to a fire a reasonable amount of wood The Food You Eat I 53 or coal and have a vigorous flame. But if too much fuel is added, the fire huffs and puffs, smokes and smolder’s inefficiently.

So, too, with the body when it is burdened with dealing with a big evening meal,

 For example, Quite possibly, too, if a large amount of fat or cholesterol is consumed at one sitting, the body may not be able to metabolize it completely, and it may overflow into vital areas such as the arteries. 

When obesity is a problem, the practice of eating five or six small meals daily may be helpful. There are fewer tendencies to overeat when smaller portions are taken more often-and fewer tendencies to indulge in snacks. When you know you will be eating again in two hours or so, the temptation to snack is not so great. 

HOW MUCH TO EAT - A word about food

FOOD CAUSES

It is better to eat no more than eighty per cent of your capacity. A Japanese proverb has it that eight parts of a full stomach  ache sustain the man; the other two sustain the doctor."

So one of the Zen masters is quoted in the book Three Pillars of Zen (Beacon Press, Boston, 1967)

The advice is relevant. That Americans generally consume too many calories for the amount of physical energy they expend is a matter of record and of increasing concern as the energy expenditure tapers off even more. Every five years, the National Research Council, which serves as scientific adviser to the United States government, publishes recommended dietary allowances.

After recommending, in 1963, a cut of 100 calories per day for men and women, it recommended another 100-calorie reduction in 1968. In its calculations, the Council uses a "reference" man and woman-each 22 years old, weighing 154 pounds and 127 pounds respectively, living in a mean temperature of 68 degrees, and engaging in light physical activity. 

Such a man, the Council now figures, needs 2,800 calories a day; the woman 2,000. The Council also recommends that caloric intake be cut below these levels with age-by 5 percent between ages 22 and 35, by 3 percent in each decade between 35 and 55, and by 5 percent per decade from 55 to 75.

This brings the figure for the woman, for example, to 1,900 by age 35, to 1,843 by age 45, to 1,788 by age 55, to 1,699 at 65 and to 1,614 at 75. These, of course, are general guidelines, leaving room for individual variations, and your physician may well have suggestions of value for you. It is a measure of good health, and a contribution toward maintaining it, to reach and keep a desirable weight. 

For that, an effective balance between food intake and energy output is needed. If you are currently at ideal weight (see table on page 61), your intake and output are in balance---which is fine if you are getting adequate amounts of exercise. Exercise, of right kind and in adequate amounts, is a vital element in health for many reasons (see Chapter 8). If you should need to increase your physical activity, you will need to increase intake to maintain desirable weight.

How Your Food Causes illnesses and remedies

THE FOOD YOU EAT IS THERE 

someone food or class of foods with special value for preventing disease? The science of nutrition has much to offer for health but it does not take the form of a panacea food or food combination. The one fact that stands out most clearly as new advances are made is that except for certain specific problems-disease states for which special diets have been definitely established as helpful-the healthiest diet has two basic characteristics: it is balanced and it is varied.

NEW REASONS

FOR BALANCE AND VARIETY One of today's most exciting research stories have to do with investigations into the role of trace elements in health and disease. It has long been known that an amount of iron that would bulk up no bigger than a couple of nails stands between us and suffocation, for iron is an essential part of the blood substance hemoglobin, which carries oxygen to body tissues. But it now seems that many other elements in minute amounts-each constituting at most 1/10,000 of body weight and very often far less- may play significant roles.

Recent studies have suggested that lack of adequate zinc in the diet can delay wound healing and may be a factor in diseases of the arteries. In one investigation, zinc supplements were given to some Air Force men who had undergone surgery. Their surgical wounds healed in less than half the time required in other men who had had the same surgery but did not receive zinc supplements. The results not only demonstrated zinc's role in speeding healing; they suggested that the diet of these airmen may well have been Zinc-deficient.  

Building General Health as Preventive Therapy In a later study, investigators treated with zinc supplements a group of patients who had skin sores that refused to heal. Of the 17 patients in the group, 11 were found to be deficient in zinc, and in all 11 the chronic skin ulcers healed with zinc treatment. The remaining was not zinc- deficient, and although they received the same treatment, their wounds still did not heal. Although the relationship between zinc deficiency and hardening of leg arteries that can block circulation and cause gangrene is not clearly established, some patients who were deficient in zinc and had advanced degeneration of the arteries have shown improvement with zinc therapy. 

Administering Drugs with care - Preventive adverse and side effects

First read the label when you take the drug container from the medicine cabinet; read it again when you take the drug itself; and finally, read the label a third time when you put the container away. That last reading is an extra check to make certain you read the label properly the first two times. If you did happen to make a mistake, you have a chance to do something about it at once.

  

TRICKS FOR PROPER DOSAGE made by machines that produce attractive roundedness

 For the most part, are more attractive-looking and less expensive than those that were made individually by a druggist to a special prescription of a physician. The trouble with machine-made articles of medicine, as with mass- produced clothes, is that tailoring to each individual's needs cannot be built in. Thus, it's known that the amount of medicine required varies almost directly with the weight of a person.

Most machine-made capsules and pills are made for a standard person of about 150 pounds so they are apt to contain just a bit too much for most women, a bit too little for most men. Doctors have learned how to adjust dosages even with the limitations of machine-made medicines. For example, consider pills of phenobarbital often prescribed for nervousness, tension, headaches with a psychogenic component. Phenobarbital is commonly available in 1/8, 1/4, and 1/2 grain sizes. Suppose phenobarbital in 1/4 grain dosage is prescribed for a woman and it helps her tension but makes her just a bit too forgetful and drowsy to do her work properly.

The doctor tries 1/8 grain, but that doesn't help her tension enough. The solution lies in going back to the 1/4 grain dosage and proper use of a fingernail file. The patient is instructed to consider a tablet as a circle, and to gently file away one fourth of the circle, to get a tablet that is just halfway between 1/8 and 1/4 grain sizes. 

Usually, the patient "plays around" a bit and finds just the right tailor made size for her needs. When it comes to capsules-especially of sleeping medicines such as Nembutal, Seconal, and Amy talit's a help to learn how to take apart a capsule gently and pour out a portion to adjust the dosage to individual needs, then rejoin the capsule.

 Many people find a standard 1-1/2 grain capsule ineffective; on the other hand, when they take two capsules, they may experience hangovers. One full capsule and half of another may be the right dosage. 

Human body reactions to Medicines and Foods Vs Medicines

REACTIONS TO MEDICINES

It may seem unbelievable but there are more than 250 diseases that can be caused by the very medicines designed to treat and cure illness. You may well ask, "Why is this possible?" The reasons are not difficult to understand. Over the past twenty-five years or so, many hundreds of new com- pounds have been developed for treating and preventing disease. Many are powerful and complicated substances.

Their very effectiveness depends upon their great potency and complexity. In some instances, trouble has come unexpectedly because a powerful A Special Word about medicine taking new agents was not tested fully under every conceivable circumstance. Thus, for example, thalidomide seemed to be an excellent and harmless tranquilizing agent in most people, but when it was used by pregnant women it had terrible effects on their unborn children. Another reason for drug-induced illness is that human beings do have tendencies to develop allergic or sensitivity responses. These vary considerably, just as they do for foods. One person may eat eggs until the hens scream for mercy-and enjoy them with impunity; another person, allergic to them, cannot eat one without developing some upset.

And so with other foods

Because of sensitivity problems, a medicine that is highly beneficial for 95 percent of the population may cause trouble, even potentially serious trouble, for the remaining 5 percent. A good example is penicillin, clearly a lifesaving drug. It has, indeed, probably saved well over a million lives since its discovery. But it also has caused severe sensitivity re- actions in scores of thousands of people and has taken the lives of thousands.

As you may have noticed, physicians today inquire carefully about possible previous sensitivity reactions to penicillin before administering or prescribing it. Just as some people, after repeated exposure, become allergic to rag- weed pollen or to poison ivy, so some, after being helped once or even several times by an antibiotic, may develop allergic reactions to the com- pound. Usually the problem is mild-skin rash, hives, or slight fever- and disappears once the drug is stopped. Occasionally, however, there are anaphylactic, or shock like, reactions which are life-threatening, and these can be overcome only if heroic measures-adrenaline and other injections-are used in time.

Still considered the single most valuable antibiotic,penicillin is a major allergy producer because it has been so widely used. It is estimated that 10 percent of Americans have become sensitized to the drug. Still another reason for undesirable reactions is that no drug is 100 percent specific-hitting the bull's-eye, so to speak. In the course of countering the problem for which it is being used, it may produce other effects, and these have to be reckoned with. Consider, for example, the gastrointestinal upsets-cramps, diarrhea, sore mouth, rectal itch-which may occur after use of many antibiotics.

They can come about because of an upset in the natural germbalance in the body. Many harmless bacteria are always present in the gastrointestinal tract. Some, in fact, are essential to digestion; some manufacture vitamins. When a potent antibiotic is introduced to fight infection, it may also decimate this normal bacterial population. Moreover, these friendly bacteria serve another purpose in the body.