Читать книгу Old Age Deferred - Arnold Lorand - Страница 13

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There is one muscle in our body that never takes a rest. It never ceases to work, either day or night, and the better for us, for if it should stop it would mean the end of life. This muscle is the heart. Of course we must feed well such a hard-working organ, and have special care to select such a food that is the most genial for it and can the best promote its activity. As the heart is a muscle we must give the food that is best indicated for muscular activity. Observations have shown that the muscles of our body are doing their work at the expense of a certain sweet stuff (glycogen) contained in them. Experiments also prove this, for it has been found that the heart of animals removed from the body will survive for days the death of their owner if kept in a salt solution, with grape- or fruit-sugar added. The addition of certain mineral salts like lime and carbonate of sodium is also able to prolong the survival of the cut-out heart of dead animals. So there can be no doubt that the same elements must also prove useful to the heart of the living, as is indeed the case.

As I have shown in my diet book the ingestion of sweets promotes muscular activity and fatigues from bodily exertion are better borne. And this also holds good for our most important muscle the heart. I have seen in my heart patients very good results through the addition of a generous amount of sweets to their ordinary diet. On the other hand, I have, as a rule, observed a weak activity of the heart with my patients in Carlsbad suffering from the graver forms of diabetes who were kept on a diet strictly excluding sweets and starchy food in general. Indeed a weak heart is most frequent in severe diabetes, as in such a condition the sugar ingested cannot be utilized and entirely eliminated in the urine. For this reason I consider it unwise to place severe cases of diabetes on a strict diet and I recommend to them the use of fruit sugar (levulose), which is often well utilized and especially in a case of diabetes with heart-failure I like to do this. Such persons should never be strongly dieted. As the best food for the heart I recommend honey on the base of the above-mentioned observations. Honey is easily digested and assimilated; it is the best sweet food, as it does not cause flatulence and can even prevent it, to a certain extent promoting the activity of the bowels. It can easily be added to the 5 meals a day I recommend in cases of arteriosclerosis and of weak heart. As it would be unwise to leave such a hard-working organ as the heart without any food over the long hours of the night, I recommend heart patients to take before going to bed a glass of water with honey and lemon-juice in it and also to take it when awaking at night (honey dissolves in warm water).

Before and after muscular exertion honey should be given in a generous dose; no coachman would allow his horses to run for hours without giving them food at the resting intervals. Only man is so unreasonable as to undertake heavy exertions often with an empty stomach. No wonder that so many sportsmen get a weak heart simply for just such a reason. The use of sugar cannot well replace honey. In the same amount sugar is chemically irritating to the stomach. At any rate the preference should be given to cane-sugar; sugar of beet-root is chemically pure, although through modern civilization it is, unhappily, deprived of the important mineral salts the beet-root contains, and it has also been shown that through the use of chemically pure sugar the body loses in lime, which is eliminated in larger quantities. If honey is alone taken in larger dose it is better borne if water is drunk afterward. Besides honey I like to recommend grapes, as containing much sugar and also valuable mineral salts like lime. If grape cures as conducted, for instance, in Meran (Tyrol) give good results in arteriosclerosis and heart cases, the results I think could be explained by the above observations. We can best introduce lime in our bodies through milk, cheese, eggs, fruits, and vegetables. The latter, especially fruits, are also rich in sodium and potassium, which are also valuable elements for the activity of the heart. I would especially insist upon the fact that the heart-muscle is rich in lime, as it contains about seven times as much of it as the other muscles. If we introduce in our system fresh, uncooked milk and eggs we also introduce a very valuable substance of which we have spoken before, vitamines. I believe that these substances must be very valuable for the activity of the heart because in all the diseased conditions, the deficiency diseases, arising, we have found, a want of this substance (Funck). Besides, in nervous troubles a weakness of the heart and muscles is common. If in one of this class of diseases, like beriberi, even in the latent cases, strong muscular exertions are made, then cardiac attacks will appear with great weakness of the heart. According to Funck, chief of the laboratory of the London Cancer Research Institute, muscular exertions are apt to make these diseases break out at once in cases, until then latent, without any symptoms. He also impresses upon the fact that when vitamines are wanting in the food, it is the vitamine stores of the muscles which are attacked first (Funck, “Die Vitamine,” Wiesbaden, 1914). But as the best proof for my opinion that food containing vitamines is indisplaceable for the heart-muscle I mention the fact, determined by Cooper and quoted by Funck, Journal of Hygienics, 1913, that the heart-muscle is very rich in vitamines. Beriberi and other deficiency diseases are the highest degree of a condition that is due to the entire want of vitamines in the blood. But no doubt there may be lower degrees due to the insufficient amount of vitamines, in which may simply show symptoms of neurasthenia with nervous heart troubles, as an expression of the craving of our system after these substances. Milk containing vitamines, and also containing a considerable amount of sugar and lime, it must be considered as the most valuable food for the heart. But only fresh milk, for by boiling it the vitamines are lost. Boiling above 100° C, and especially in large apparatus under high pressure like in the autoclave used in many of the large institutions and some of the big hotels, destroys the vitamines. I have already in my diet book, in the chapter on rational cooking, insisted upon the dangers of overcooking our food. Another rich source of vitamines, the bran of wheat and rye, is taken from us through another invention of our so-called modern civilization, the machine milling, simply for technical reasons. Forty or fifty years ago there was no cases of beriberi in the far east; the natives ate rice with its wholesome outer layers; then modern civilization introduced machine mills instead of the old hand mills, robbing the rice of the silver fleece rich in vitamines, and beriberi appeared. It is true that the bran presents obstacles to our intestinal juices, but there exist certain methods by which it can be ground to a fine flour and all its valuable parts assimilated and introduced in our body. We have quoted here several instances of the fateful influence of our modern progress upon our health. What is the good of the great progress of medicine if, on the other hand, our modern progress through reckless inventions separates us from Mother Nature and, inducing us to unnatural habits and ways, exposes us to disease and untimely death. No wonder, then, if arteriosclerosis and old age appear in relatively young people.