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.