Here's to the Cheerful Liver

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23601, 9 March 1940, Page 6 (Supplement)

Here's to the Cheerful Liver

What the "Bilious" Subject Should Eat

By PENROD TERRY

r HAT cheerful livers we should ail be if our livers behaved themselves as Nature meant them to do! But so many' people experience what is loosely called "liver trouble" that probably about a*third of the population is in a chronic state of the blues, with a consequent half-cfiident functioning of both mind and body. The liver, you see, is the largest and most important gland in the body, with functions so various and complex that when it is out of order, the whole system follows suit. Let us consider some of its activities: First of all, it controls directly the elaboration of nourishment received from the intestinal tract, converting the end-products of starch, sugar and fat digestion into glycogen, a form 01 sugar the body uses most readily for the production of heat and energy. Secondly, it manufactures bile, a substance necessary for fat digestion; and how efficiently it would carry out these functions if we treated it fairly! We are discovering other important functions, but it is with these two wo are most concerned. Certain foods, particularly milk, cheese, chocolate and cocoa, overburden the liver with a too high concentration of nourishment, and if they are taken over a period tho liver protests, with the characteristic biliousness and its many distressing symptoms. Those with a bilious tendency would do well to restrict their diet to plain, wholesome foods, and to take advantage of tho newer knowledge gained from the study of fatty acids, both saturated a»nd unsaturated, foods yielding these latter being far easier of digestion and assimilation. lodine-bearing foods are very helpful, and these include sea vegetation such as kelp and dulse, as well as fish, oysters, etc. In general, however, the diet should be made up of fresjj acid fruits, particularly oranges, pineapples and tomatoes, raw green salads, wholemeal bread, buttermilk and one concentrated protein food per day, either fish, lean meat or occasionally nuts. Of course, do not overlook exercise and fresh air.