HEALTH NOTES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21649, 20 May 1932, Page 9

HEALTH NOTES

.Written for the Otago Daily Times. By. R. J. Teeet. i A correspondent asks me to explain: acidosis, as one .often reads of this disease in health literature. I shall endeav' our to explain it as simply as. possible? There are several acids -which are being . constantly formed' in our bodies, such as uric acid, phosphoric acid; carbonic acid? oxalic acid, lactic acid, sulphuric acid, .and many minor acids. If they are allowed to remain in the body-in their natural state and are not neutralised they produce p condition known as acidosis. The acids attack the tissues, t In nearly all civilised countries people suffer more Pr less from acidosis. The condition may be very slight or it may' be extremely violent.’ The physician gives it a number of names; or rather there are a number of conditions which would not exist if the acid condition were not present 6v/sv an tended period—such conditions as rheumatism, neuritis, nervous prostration, palpitation of the heart, shortness of breath, flabbiness of tissue, and puffyswelling of the limbs, especially round thq ankles. Now, if you give Nature a chance by eating proper food, you counterbalance or render these,acids,neutral. In, the study of foods—that is, by those who really study—the' alkalies are called bases. Some acids are very . powerful, others are feeble. Sulphuric.acid, which is contained in the body and is being manufactured .continually, is one of the powerr ful or energetic acids. Lactic acid may be quoted as- one of the feeble acids; j. Powerful or feeble, these acids are all 1 neutralised or destroyed, as it might be, by bases. Now, it is to see that if you are'eating foods which are coin-, tinually forming an excess of acids and not eating sufficient which are rich in what are termed bases, then the acids: which develop in the process of assimilation and digestion do not'become neutralised. The tissues, nerves, etc. t when in health, are surrounded by (fluids which , are largely alkaline, and the living tissue and nerves are bathed-in an irritat- ,i ing acid secretion, and if this condition is continued sufficiently. long, then various, diseases develop. Unfortunately for mankind, profiteers or quacks take advantage of this preval- . erit condition and sell or prescribe soda under various names, sometimes mixed j with another mineral salt, and claims that, they correct the trouble. All it does is to hide certain symptoms which were real danger signals, and when,they are blinded or covered one is more apt to meet disaster than formerly. V ■ “ Mother ” -writes that she has' a baby, three months’ old, that after its birth she was very thin, and that when the’ baby was about two weeks old she de-i, veloped a ravenous appetite and put on, three stone in under three months. She concludes that < she may have been, eating the wrong food, but until lately there were no symptoms which showed that this was so. Ordinary food was eaten—meat, potatoes, fish; eggs, jnilk, etc. —but in addition there was a crav-V ing for fruit cake and pastries, which craving was gratified to the full. Instead of her feeling stronger there is a decidedly tired feeling, a certain amount , of irritability and nerves, and a feeling.of emptiness, or, to. use my correspondent’s own words, “ as-if the bottom o£ the, stomach was falling out.” She is also surprised that with all the food eaten, ; ■ there is very little milk for the babyin fact, no' iiiprease. “Mother ” has just poisoned her syitem.with an accumulation of waste material. The fact of the-food not making Utilk is -really - a question of individuality. The mother could put on condition in the wjy she,lias done and make milk at tjie-same time. The milk is probably doing the ' baby .very little good, and as the mother is giving it humanised milk it will not piatfer much if the baby gets a little less of breast milk for a few days. My advice'to the mother is this: Don’t eat any food fop, 24 hours; you may dyink water. (Now, be strict in this. % Don’t go without liieais for the 24 hours' and have cups of teaand cake.) Begin again with only two, , meals' a day. You may eat heartily at these two meals, but there must .be nothing eaten between meals. You mayhave a cup of freshly made weak tea, but not with the meals. Cakes and pastries must be cut right out. If the cravr, ing for sweets is very strong and you, cannot resist, have some honey: eat datei but -not lollies. Have some kind of uncooked green stuff each day. : ; T “Palmerston” asks if I consider tire, eating of ice cream harmful to children;, —lf ice cream is manufactured , under;', clean conditions, and is eaten slowly, there will be no ill results;'in fact, it can bd 1 highly nutritious ,if taken in but this naturally depends on its constituents, as it varies considerably. ISf “O. T. T. ” writes that her husband feels tired , every morning, has heavy sweats during the night, is very irritable and nervy," and after work is too tired, to move, complains about pains; there is ' also flatulence. “He has a good-appe-tite, but does not seem to get good the food. He has always worked hard, all day, and worked again in the .workshop a few hours after his tea.” He is! , just in the same condition as a racehorse which has been wound up to the pink b& condition, kept in good muscular condi - tion, and- worked till he becomes stale,., which really means that the body is choked with waste from the tissue until it is poisoned. He needs to do the absolute opposite to that which he has been doing all these years. He needs to go slack, have hot baths with soda in them or Turkish baths if he can get them. Ha should lie down, and let those muscles relqx, and loosely shake himself several times a day. If a man at hard work were to stop for a dew seconds occasion-, ‘.ally and let his muscles just shakeioosely, he would Hot get tired and old as quickly, as the average hard-working man does,. Constipation is also accentuating the' troubles, as the wastes of. the body are not carried off. If he can obtain watermelon he should not cat the melon only,; • but also chew the seeds. Water melon; cleanses the body of many of its wastes. . If there is worry, that will need to lie ; overcome; possibly, it. exists only in imagination, because the man is feeling ill.' f “ Sneezer ” has a cold in the head, with, sneezing every morning. . It goes off about mid-day. He uses an inhaler .and,, syringes the -nose each day with some drops dissolved in warm water. He has' been doing this for the past three years without any improvement. lam not the least surprised. If he will leave, his nose alone for a while it might getbetter. Many people get the inside of .. the nostril highly inflamed by, perpetual doctoring. WKen it is inflamed any bacteria they breaths' have a nice resting place, and. needless to say, take full advantage of it and thrive and multiply. When the nostrils have once been cleansed": thoroughly leave them alone, v , but if they have been rendered . sensitive either"; through long treatment with or through long-continued cold, endeavour jo harden them off by"a weak solution of sea r water or salt and water, and discontinue,! this as soon as the nose is right. Nature'' intended the nostrils to trap and hill bacteria. Many people have nostrils which act in opposition to this. ;