A nationally known physician states it to be a physiologically established fact that the deficiencies of vitamins and minerals cause a hypersensitive, irritable, and excitable nervous system.
It is also a well known fact that the impulses of anger and fear cause a tension upon the nervous system as a whole. However, it is not a well considered fact that these two conditions, deficiencies and emotional distress, both expend their effect upon the heart.
The diastolic action of the heart is the rebound rest after the systolic pumping action sends your blood upon its journey to all parts of the body. Of a necessity, the heart muscles should have the elasticity needed for perfect action, so that the little rest will automatically restore the contractability so necessary to long and efficient action.
If you do not supply the needed materials for the constant repair of worn out cells in the heart muscles, it is a foregone conclusion that you will wear out the heart itself. Of course, if you are under continuous nervous strain, the muscles of your heart are forced to pump against a restraint which wears out heart muscle cells as fast as you can repair them.
An even greater factor in the cause of heart trouble is one of an insidious nature which has no apparent relationship to a heart condition. A normal colon never has contact with the heart, nor does the abnormal one, except indirectly. Yet, it is the cause of more heart trouble, possibly, than any other factor. A bloated colon shoves up against the spleen and stomach, which in turn press against the heart with no little force. That is why people with indigestion feel as though they need more air; that they would like to take a longer breath.
The heart is a tough, thick-walled, muscular organ ; yet a vital spark. It takes a lot of rough usage to make the heart lay down on the job. There is nothing to warrant you thinking that you have heart trouble when you are a little short of breath; not even if it skips a beat now and then. However, continued shortness of breath connected with every day bloat of the colon can cause plenty of trouble. When you hear your doctor talking about such gosh-awful names as Cardiac Insufficiency, Myocarditis, Arterioschlerosis, Angina Pectoris and a few others, you will know that you have eaten too many years in such a bad manner as to carry around a daily bloated colon.
Proper eating can prevent at least nine-tenths of the gas which causes a bloated colon. If you can prevent the distended colon from shoving up against the heart you may prevent a great portion of heart trouble which is fast becoming the largest factor in the cause of death. It would be a good idea for you people who read this treatise if you paid some attention to the chemical eating chart found elsewhere in the book.
We have followed through the possibility of wrong eating causing several well known organic diseases. Most of these organic diseases could have been caused directly from indigestion alone, or in combination with constipation. How many other systemic disturbances actually stem from indigestion and constipation, it would be hard to even guess. We will leave the reader to try and figure that one out.
It is not the desire of the writer to scare people into a fanatical method of eating. However, it is the intent and purpose of this entire book to point out to you readers the possibility of disease caused by a too narrow selection of food. In future chapters other conditions which are brought about by deficiencies will be detailed; even taboos and peculiarities of eaters will be considered.