TALKS ON HEALTH.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 694, 22 February 1933, Page 8

TALKS ON HEALTH.

Prevent Straining of the Heart. BY A FAMILY DOCTOR. The heart is a much-abused organ. It has to work night and day. It begins to beat long before you are born, and goes on beating for a little alter you are dead. There are no Bank Holidays for the heart. Bodily exertion puts a strain on the heart. It is a common error to believe that when a man is dead-beat alter a race that the lungs are the distressed organs. The truth is that what is popularly called 44 the wind ” is really the heart. The effect of muscular action on the heart may be demonstrated by a simple experiment. Count the number of heart-beats—i.e., the pulse—per minute while you are lying down at complete rest. You will rind the number is about seventy. Now sit up and count again. The small amount of extra exertion in sitting up will send the pulse-rate up a few beats. Now walk round the room and count again. Heart and Lungs. If you want to appreciate the extra work done by the heart, try punching into a punch-ball seventy times a minute, and then increase the number of punches to 120 per minutes. You will soon feel sorry for the heart. Although the heart and the lungs are separate organs, they work together in such close harmony that they may almost be regarded as one. Anything which interferes with the heart embarrasses the lungs, and vice versa. When an anaemic girl arrives at the top of the stairs and cannot get her breath, it is her heart that is at lault, not the lungs. When a foolish young man, wishing to make an impression on his sweetheart by the manly exercise of smoking cigarettes, damages his heart, the first sign is breathlessness. “ That Feeling of Exhaustion.” Now we come back to the question of weight. Every extra ounce of superfluous fat puts a decided strain on the heart. In the hot weather we may pity the fat old lady struggling along with florid face and clammy skin. She weighs fourteen stone, and, for her height, the proper weight should be nine stone. Poor old heart! No wonder the old lady has to go into a shop and ask to be allowed to sit down. That feeling of exhaustion is a sign that her heart has had enough of it. If she walks along much farther the heart will actually go on strike, and she will faint. A faint is a protest, in no uncertain language, from the heart-muscle. Overload the motor-car and put it at a steep gradient, and the engine will stop. Two Cardinal Rules. There are thousands of people whose lives would be happier if they would reduce their weight. Two cardinal rules must be laid down in connection with this question of fat-reduction: (1) The reduction must not be too rapid, or

weakness will result. When you see an advertisement announcing a rapid reduction of flesh, avoid the stuff as you would the plague. It is dangerous; it probably contains some acid which prevents the digestion of food; it may accomplish what it claims and reduce the fat, but the end of the treatment finds the patient thin and with a ruined digestion; (2) the reduction of the quantity of food taken is far more important than changing the dietary. For instance, a man may be told that potatoes are fattening, but that he may take lean meat. So, in his daily dietary, he leaves off half a pound of potatoes and eats an extra three-quarters of a pound of lean meat. Result—he puts on a quarter of a pound of flesh and declares the treatment to be faulty.