HOME HEALTH GUIDE

Timaru Herald, Volume CLV, Issue 22786, 10 January 1944, Page 3

HOME HEALTH GUIDE

Overeating And The Heart

(By the Department of Health) Overeating in its relation to heart diseases after middle life is just as detrimental as infection, or alcohol or overwork, or mental fatigue. This is a fact too commonly ignored by people who have a well-developed fondness for food. And it is undeniable that in New Zealand overeating is a pretty popular pastime—even war time conditions haven’t interfered with it much so far.

That fullness and touch of pain you may feel after a hearty dinner may call for something a little different from a dose of sodium bicarbonate or some similar preparation. It may help, of course, but even if it does give relief, the symptoms of fermentation and gaseous distention in the stomach should be viewed with some suspicion in people past middle life. It may, possibly, be caused by a temporary disturbance of the gastric juices, the liver, or the intestinal tract. With surprising frequency, however, this upset is caused by the heart registering a reflex protest against an overloaded stomach, to which it must force a supply of blood to carry on the process of digestion. In short, the hard-working heart is taking up the extra strain.

AU round us are victims of incipient hardening of the arteries. These are people who have swallowed pounds of stomach powders when what was needed was a lightening of the load on the heart—-or, putting it another way, a substantial modification of mealtime habits.

Take a little more notice next time you get those after-dinner pains. It may pay to have a word with your doctor, because heart trouble can be corrected if it is treated soon enough.