The health question box

Massage not an Efficient Remedy for Obesity Q. Can excessive fat be removed by means of massage? A. No. Massage is purely mechanical in its effects. It does not increase to any considerable extent the bodily activities by means of which alone fat can be consumed. Careful experi­ ments made by Zuntz, an eminent German in­ vestigator, and others showed that massage does not increase metabolism and hence cannot be relied upon as a means of reducing fat. Many persons have wasted an enormous amount of time and money in an attempt to reduce their weight by treatment at the hands of manipula tors who claim to be able to accomplish a cure by massage and various special manipulations, but do not make good their claims. Work is necessary for the reduction of fat, and work by the patient himself, no matter how distasteful. The obese patient must make up his mind that he must work out his own salvation.

Obesity Pills, Anti-Fat Remedies Q. Is it safe to make use of the much ad­vertised anti-fat remedies for reducing the weight? A. Certainly not. Many of these so-called obesity remedies are dangerous. Such nostrums do harm by causing delay in the application of efficient remedies. And besides, not a few of these obesity remedies c ontain active and highly dangerous drugs. One of the products most frequently employed is the dried thyroid of the sheep. This remedy may be of some value in rare cases in which there is a deficiency of the se­cretion of the thyroid gland, but e v en in these cases it must be used with the greatest care as an over-dose is likely to produce serious dis­turbances of the heart and various nervous dis­turbances of more or less serious character. In by far the great majority of cases of obesity there is no deficiency of the thyroid secretion and administration of thyroid is followed within a few days by quickening of the pulse and the appearance of variou...

The "Fruit Regimen" for Obesity Q. Is the "Fruit Regimen" good for obesity? A. There is no method superior to the fruit and bran regimen. This plan is very simple. The diet is made to consist exclusively of juicy fruits, bran, celery, lettuce, cucumbers, etc. The food should be taken four times a day or at intervals of about four hours. Convenient hours are seven a. m., eleven a. m., three p. m. and seven p. m. At each meal two or three heaping dessert spoonfuls of sterilized bran should be eaten. A very convenient way to take the bran is with stewed tomatoes or apple sauce, or it may be made into a porridge with tomatoes or fruit of some sort thickened with a small spoonful of flour or meal. Salt should be avoided altogether or taken only in a very min­ute quantity. This is quite important if a rapid reduction of weight is desired. One or two paraffin tablets or an ounce of paraffin oil should be taken at each meal. The purpose of this regimen is to secure...

Fasting to Relieve Obesity Q. In fasting for relief of obesity, how much may the diet be reduced? A. In an at t emp t to ge t rid of s urplu s fle s h by redu c ing th e intake of food, it is highly im­portant to avoid robbing the body of its store of protein as this must result in wasting of the muscles, weakening the heart, depreciating the blood and generally injuring the vital machin­ery. Carefully conducted experiments by Mag­nus-Levy, Beinstein, and others, have shown that if the dietary is not reduced much below two-thirds of the actual requirement, that is, not more than one-third below the energy out­put, the protein of the tissues will not be attacked while the fat will be progressively con­sumed. It is especially important also to note in arranging the dietary for a fat patient that the protein may be protected by making the diet consist almost exclusively of carbohydrates. That is, fats should be almost withdrawn from the diet. The protein intake may be kept at the ...

Buttermilk Cure for Obesity Q . What is the buttermilk and potato cure for obesity?  A. In the so- ca lled "buttermilk and potato cure" for obesity, the patient is allowed to eat nothing at all but buttermilk and potatoes. A full ration of these two articles would require a person to eat two quarts of buttermilk and seven pounds of potatoes . The bulk of this diet is so great that the patient finds it quite im­possible to ea t the whole of it . Cons e quently he is able to satisfy his appetite completely while at the same time the amount of food he takes is less than his body requires, and the result is he loses in weight. This diet has a further advantage in that it c ontains very little fat . The sense to satiety de­pends more up o n the bulk of th e f oo d than the quality of it.

How to Reduce a Fat Abdomen Q. What will reduce a fat abdomen? A. S aw ing wood . Thi s i s a ca pital exercise, something that will make the abdominal mus­cles work. Or one may lie on the back and raise the legs to v ertical 150 times a day. The next best thing is to lie on the back and raise the head far enough to see the feet for a considerable number of times daily. This will contract th e a bdomin a l muscl e s a nd make them work. This part of the bod y gets fat because the muscles are so little used. Work uses up fat as fuel. Fat accumulates where there is deficient activity; so the main thing to do is to make that part of the body work. Swimming is a good ex­ercise f or th e pu r pose . Autom a ti c ex ercise , that i s , e xe rcise produced by rhythmical electrical stimulation of the muscles, is a most efficient means of reducing either general or local obesity.

Obesity Dangers Q. What are the dangers from obesity? A. Plump people are only one-fourth as likely to suffer from tuberculosis as a person of average weight, while lean people are six times as likely to suffer from this disease as those who are overweight. Dr. Symmonds has clearly shown that leanness predisposes to tuberculosis or at least to fatal tuberculosis, while lean per­ sons are only half as likely to suffer from dia­ betes as persons of average weight. Lean persons, on the other hand, are twice as likely to die from pneumonia as persons who are overweight. Fleshy persons seem to be in some way immune against the germ of pneu­ monia, while l ea n persons are especially suscep­ tible. Overweights suffer twice as often from Bright's disease, both acute and chronic, as do persons of normal weight. This is probably due to the excessive feeding to which overweights are likely to be habituated. Obese persons suf­fer from cirrhosis of the liver three and one­ half tim...

Is Obesity Curable Q. Is obesity curable? If so, by what means? A. Practically all cases of obesity are cur­able if proper means are adopted. It must be understood, however, by a cure is not meant complete restoration to a normal condition. This is by no means always possible; in fact, in cases of extreme obesity it is not safe even if it were possible to reduce the patient's weight to his original standard . If, for ex­ample, a person whose normal weight is 175 pounds has acquired a weight of 350 pounds he should be content to reduce his weight to 225 or 250 pounds. A reduction of weight of 150 or 175 pounds could scarcely be accomplished in such a case without doing the individual serious damage. A great accumulation of fat in the abdomen stretches the abdominal muscles . so that when this condition has existed for a con­siderable length of time the removal of the fat will leave the abdominal muscles in such a re­laxed condition that they will not afford proper support ...

The Cause of Obesity Q. What is the cause of obesity? A. There are several causes. The most common cause is over eating or eating an excess of fats. An excessive intake of starchy foods also tends to produce an exces sive accumulation of flesh. The same is true of sugar. Candy eating is undoubtedly a fre­ quent cause of excessive fat accumulation. Food is fuel; fat is unused fuel. About one-fourth of the food we eat is con­sumed in muscle work, the remaining three­ fourths is mostly used in maintaining the heat of the body. It is evident then, that the amount of food consumed should be regulated by the temperature and amount of work done. A per­son lying quietly in a warm bed requires less than half the amount of food which is needed by a person exposed to cold and engaged in active exercise. A man working very hard out doors in very cold weather might in fact utilize fully three times as much food as a person ly­ing still in bed or sitting quietly in a warm room. It is ev...

Degrees of Obesity Q. When may a person be regarded as obese? A. There are, of course, degrees of obesity. A person whose weight is ten or fifteen per cent greater than that of the average person of his height may be said to be over-fat. When the excess of fat amounts to twenty-five per cent of the normal weight of the individual he may be said to be obese. Cases are sometimes met in which the fat accumulation is so great that the person's weight has become more than double the normal. Such a person is danger­ ously obese. Any person whose weight is fifteen or twenty pounds more than the normal weight for his height should take measures to reduce his weight.