Why Do We Fall In Sick?
whoever want to fall in sick?
no one want to fall in sick, yet, why many people fall in sick.
“Prevention is better than cure.” In other words, “Don’t ever fall sick.” The moment you are given this advice, you are sure to retort, but who wants to fall sick at all? Do you think it is up to us to decide whether to fall sick or not?
The answer is: Yes, it is. It is entirely within the power of every one of us to maintain Good Health and avoid falling a prey to illness.
There is a mechanism in the human body that protects it against diseases. This mechanism is termed the Vital force. If not seriously interfered with, the Vital force is capable of keeping the body free from illness all one’s life.
This means that, if care is taken to maintain the Vital force at its full strength, no disease can invade the body. And even if, due to some mischance, one does happen to be victimized by illness, it is certain that the illness will be speedily cast out by the Vital force. It is significant that even Hippocrates, the father of modern therapeutic science believed that “it is Nature that heals, not the physician.”
In order to be able to prevent illness, it is necessary to understand the factors that are responsible for weakening the Vital force. The following factors enfeeble the Vital force and cause the accumulation of toxins in the body.
1 – Improper Life-style:
The numerous pressures of the business of making a living compel modern man to continuously run here and there, as exigencies demand, As a result, he finds it impossible to live a regular life: taking his food, drinks and rest as and when he can, instead of following a regular schedule. The biological rhythm is consequently disrupted. He does not feel hungry when he should; the bowels do not move at the proper time; the intestines fill with toxic wastes; the body loses animation and is overcome by lassitude. This situation invites various diseases.
2 – Psychological Factor:
In today’s busy and competitive life, mental tension has exceeded all bounds. Today we find countless people with a negative approach to life. It is a fact that mental attitude has a direct effect on the body. In the opinion of experts, a major proportion of the disorders of mankind are psychosomatic.
3 – Lack of Exercise:
Modern industrialization has set man against all Kinds of physical exertion. Intellectuals leading sedentary lives enjoy great prestige in society. But the importance of physical labor should not be lost sight of. Physical exertion speeds up the circulation of blood, enhances digestive powers, increases the number of red and white blood corpuscles and promotes the ventilation of the lungs by deeper breathing. At the same time, increased perspiration helps to remove some of the poisons from the body.
People leading sedentary lives cannot digest their food well. They are always suffering from indigestion, flatulence and constipation. And as everyone knows, constipation is the mother of a host of disorder.
are psychosomatic.
4– Improper Dietary Habits:
Our ancestors lived on a very simple diet. It was precisely because of this that they enjoyed long lives. On the other hand, our food today abounds in spicy, fried preparations, cold dished and sweets. The use of refined, processed and frozen foods is spreading. These foods produce large amounts of acidic and poisonous end-products in the body. Poisons accumulate even faster in the bodies of persons given to eating meat, or large amount of pulses. And it is these poisons that are the roots of all disorders.
It is also necessary to think of the ingredients of the foods. Our food is made up of three chief ingredients: proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are digested partly in the small mouth while chewing, and partly in the small intestine. Proteins are digested in the stomach, while fats are digested in the intestine. The digestion of each these ingredients of food is a different, independent process. Now, if all the three ingredients are taken in large quantities in a single meal, they cannot be digested properly. The food will, in such cases, decay in the intestines and produce toxic substances.
In addition to the quality, the kind and the make-up of the food, it is also necessary to think of its quantity. Today people do not exercise discretion in the amount of food they take. Food these days is so spicy and savory that the temptation to eat more-and then just a little more!-cannot be easily resisted.
Moreover, in our society, regaling people with food is considered a token of affection. We, therefore, stuff our guests full, urging them to eat more. Excessive amounts of food are a burden on the digestive system, and disrupt the process of digestion. Frequent feeds have the same effect. Burdening the digestive organs with more food before the digestion of one meal is completed, is senseless. The words of that master of health science, Redi Mallet, deserve to be carved in our dining halls: To keep healthy, one must always remain a little hungry
The use of sugar and salt has also increased enormously. All the experts are unanimous in denouncing both of these substances as deleterious. Sugar – and foodstuffs – containing substantial amounts of sugar, such as chocolate, peppermint, chewing gum jams jellies, sweets and foods canned in syrup-when taken in excess, cause tooth decay, diabetes, heart disease, migraine, skin eruption and kidney disorders. This is why nutritionists have dubbed sugar ‘sweet poison’. The famous British scientist Prof. John Yadkin, after numerous investigations, came to the conclusion that the human body needs no refined sugar as fuel for energy. The requisite amount of sugar is available in sufficient quantities from natural foods.
The use of salt too, like that of sugar has exceeded all reasonable bounds. One can perhaps understand the use of a little salt in cooked vegetable, soups and curries to improve the taste. But nowadays salt is added even to chapattis, buttermilk and salads. And all bounds of good sense are crossed, when salt is sprinkled even on fruit! Even peanuts, almonds and pistachios have got to be salted. And, if people are asked to give up salt, they cry out:”Oh, no! Take food without salt? It would be better to starve than to take such insipid.” Excessive salt causes immeasurable damage to the heart and the kidneys. Both marine salt and mineral salt are equally harmful. Many scientists and nutritionists believe that salt is a factor in causing headache, insomnia, hepatic diseases, sinusitis, epilepsy, rheumatoid arthritis corpulence, and even cancer.
5 – Addiction:
These days’ people accord high priority to sensual pleasures, and therefore become easy preys to objectionable and harmful habits such as addiction to stimulants like tea, coffee or cocoa, or intoxicants like tobacco alcohol and drugs. We promote the formation and accumulation of toxic substances in the body by the consumption of such intoxicants, and invites dreadful diseases like cancer by keeping our mouths stuffed with betel leaves laced with tobacco, tobacco extracts, and even worse additives.
Tea, coffee and cocoa are classified as stimulants. They contain caffeine and tannin, both of which are harmful substances. They affect specific parts of the brain, thus stimulating nerves and muscles, causing palpitations and quickened breathing. Coffee increases the proportion of fats in the blood. If this condition persists for a long time, the fat gets deposited on the walls of the blood vessels which get hardened and constricted. Gradually the blood pressure rises, the heart is overburdened, and the risk of a heart attack increases.
None of the beverages mentioned above possesses any nutritive value. The consumption of these beverages must be avoided.
Alcoholic drinks too, like tea and coffee, have deleterious effects on the nerves and the heart. Their effects on the digestive system are also well known. Alcohol blunts hunger, causes irritation and swelling of the lining of the stomach, and impairs the functions of the liver. These facts point clearly to the necessity of giving up, and abstaining from, the use of all types of alcoholic drinks.
The direct relation between smoking hearts diseases has been established beyond doubt. Tobacco contains nicotine, which is explicitly described in medical dictionaries as a powerful and active poison. Smoking introduces this poison, as well as the highly poisonous gas carbon mono-oxide, into the lungs.
Experiments have shown that nicotine causes increased secretion of Adrenalin and noradrenalin into the blood stream, which results in a higher proportion of fats in the blood.
It is for this reason that smoking accelerates the process of the hardening of the blood vessels. The arteries providing nutrients to the heart muscles also become congested, hardened and brittle, with consequences ranging from palpitation and hypertension to angina pectoris and heart attacks.
Vitamins are essential for the heart and the blood vessels. Vitamins stored in the body are gradually destroyed by smoking. Smoking just one cigarette destroys an amount of vitamin C equivalent to that contained in one whole orange.
Prolonged use of tobacco gives rise to palsy, vertigo, fainting fits and other nervous disorders. Sixteen carcinogens have been found to be present in tobacco. Long-term user of tobacco suffer from ‘Burger’s Disease’, in which the veins of the legs are constricted to such an extent that walking even a short distance causes excruciating pains in the calves.
And we should not run away with the idea that it is only smoking tobacco that harms the heart and impairs general bodily health. Chewing tobacco, applying tobacco powder or paste to the teeth and inhaling snuff are also harmful, to a smaller or a greater extent.
All packets of cigarettes bear the warning that cigarette smoking is injurious to health. In spite of this ubiquitous warning, not only the illiterate who have the excuse of not being able to read the warning, but even the literate find it impossible to give up smoking, once they have fallen victims to the habit. A recent survey revealed that nearly 80 per cent of doctors-yes, doctors-are addicted to smoking! This surely is the climax of man’s slavery to the habit.
6 – Indiscriminate Use of Medicines:
A large number of medicines are toxic in nature, and their use results in the accumulation of poisons in the body. They inactivate the bone marrow, thus weakening the Vital force. Obviously, when the Vital force itself is moribund; no medicines are going to be effective.
Dr. H. G. Cox, M. D., of the New York Collage of Physicians and Surgeons, admonishes doctor in these words, “The fewer the medicines you give to your patients, the better for them.”
The following words of the great pharmacologist and physician, Dr. William Osler, whose name is recorded in golden letters in history, deserve to be inscribed in the hearts of every one of us: “The human body is such a complex machine that our present knowledge of it can still be considered only rudimentary. And yet we fill it with medicines about the mode of action of which we know next to nothing. The only real doctor is one who understands the limitations of his own medicines.” Perhaps no one is more qualified than Dr. Osler to express an opinion on the value of medicines.
The above dicta may perhaps seem unfounded, and even biased, to those doctors who are dazzled by the progress of medical science, and regard mechanistic therapeutic systems with admiration. But it is the opinion of Dr. Otto Musset that, “Science can hold only the second place to Nature’s first. Notwithstanding all the progress that we have made in chemistry, it is not possible for all the laboratories in the world, uniting in a concerted effort, to equal the fine coordination and precious of the reactions continually occurring in every single cell of the body.”
In the opinion of Dr. H .P. Pickerel, M.D., “The only logical way to fight diseases is to augment the power of the patient’s body to resist diseases.”
According to Dr. Wendell McLeod, the Head of the Department of Medicine at the Saskatchewan University of Canada “it is most regrettable that we are bent upon making ever increasing use of medicines, instead of relying on, and having faith in, Nature’s powers of resistance to diseases.”
The great inventor Thomas Alva Edison has very aptly remarked, “So long as man is unable to produce even a blade of grass from non-living matter, Nature can continue to laugh at his vaunted scientific knowledge.”
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