EATING TO EXCESS.

Shannon News, 29 April 1924, Page 4

EATING TO EXCESS.

■ f- ■. PHYSICIAN’S VIEW OF CANCER. A largo number of people have dug their graves with their teeth, and many are still digging their graves in this manner, says “Science Siftings.”, jwen children who can, of course, consume much more proportionately than adults and flourish, frequently eat a good deal more food than is good for them. A mother is inclined to plume herself on the fact that her infant is. continually, taking, nourishment, and is surprised that it is peevvish and does not seem to make much progress. Dr. Eric Pritchard is one of those who have preached in and out of sea. son that infants are oficn stuped with food to their lasting detriment by their mothers o.r by those in charge of them. While* much is heard and wriuen concerning deficiency : diseases, and rightly, too, little is heard of the diseases consequent on or aggravated ~y overeating; among both children and adults.

A well-balanced diet in sufficiency is needful for health, but such a diet taken in excess during a prolonged period may easily be highly injurious and in time kill. In hot weather and so far as infants and young children are concerned, this is especially the case, and in those fed artificially tljp fat in the milk may be reduced with benefit. , *• The increase of cancer among civilised people and particularly among, prosperous high-living people, gives one td think furiously and to help the belief’that after all cancer is a disease of civilisation.

The state of affairs in regard- to can. ccr arid its constant increase, and the death-rate from it tends to suggest, to put'it mildly, that cancer is a desease of civilisation, that is, a disease chiefly affecting a well-to-do people who eat generously, ’perhaps too generously. Is dancer initiated or developed, or both, by errors of diet in quaritity and particularly in quantity in those who are predisposed to the disease? The 'prevalence of cancer in prosperous countries in which the people eat largely is so suggestive that the problem fehould be closely studied from the viewpoint of civilised life, and particularly from the point of vie>v of diet. sEating to excess may be the cause!of more* disease than is imagined; and in suitable food eaten with discretion may be found the master key of preventive medicine.