Questions from Listeners

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 954, 22 November 1957, Page 16

Questions from Listeners

This is the text of a talk on health broadcast recently from ZB, ZA, YA and YZ. stations of the NZBS

by UK

H. B.

TURBOTT

Deputy-

Director-General of Health

ODAY is question time. Here are answers to letters received; it is a mixed bag, but you may be interested in some of them. "I would be grateful if you could tell me of the virtue or otherwise of celery as a food, both leaves and stalks, either green or blanched." Celery is not the nutritional wizard that some people think it is! It makes us chew and exercise our jaws. Eaten at the end of a meal it cleans our teeth. It gives our bowels some roughage or bulk to work on, and thus may help constipated folk. In celery leaves there is not much worthwhile except vitamin A, but we get plenty of that in milk, cheese and butter. Whether green or white, celery has. little to offer in essential food nutrients. Nevertheless, you may want to use it for flavour and variety in soups, salads and stews, in spite of the fact that it contributes little to our nutrition. Celery has real value on the dental side, especially for children who can be given celery sticks to be eaten after their school lunch, A couple of years ago I told you aluminium utensils were safe for cooking. A correspondent repeats the question, "Can aluminium pots and pans do harm?" The answer is, categorically, No! Aluminium in-.several forms is used by doctors in dealing with complaints inside and outside the body. Our U.S.A. friends would hardly be a virile nation today, were there any cancer or other danger in using aluminium for cooking utensils. No poisonous substances are given off by such ware. "I am 40 and have recently started being conscious of a stiffness in my finger joints in the morning, especially in the cold, damp weather. Could this be early signs of arthritis?" Yes, it could! It reveals itself commonly between the ages of 20 and 40 years. Five warning signs or early symptoms of rheumaticky changes in the joints are morning stiffness, pain and swelling of joints, persistent muscular aches and pains, increasing thinness for no known reason, weakness and feverish turns. Any one of these could be the beginning ofthat crippling member of the rheumatism family rheumatoid arthritis. It affects women more than men. Any housewife or business woman with stiffness in any joint in the morning should take it seriously and consult her _ doctor.

Early treatment can delay the onset of injury to the joints and the crippling that is so often associated with our common- enemy, rheumatic disease. There is some connection with emotional states, sleeplessness and worry, unhappy home conditions, so-called ‘nervous upsets," can precipitate an arthritic condition. If you have early signs of rheumatoid arthritis and can’t help getting "stewed up" inside at home, it is very unfortunate; maybe more frequent short holidays

away, or some new diverting outside interest, would enable you to bear the emotional strain better and thus offset the "trigger" effect of nervous strain. ’ "T am 60 years of age. I have had some infection of the tonsils for years which flares up at times and is always with me. Medical advice is that an operation is the only form of relief, Is there a satisfactory treatment other than operation?".At any age, chronically infected tonsils are a _ liability. Septic material "pockets" in the deep fissures of the glands, and once this has happened, no medical treatment is of any avail. Surgical removal is then the only safe course to avoid recurrent trouble with sore throats, and the possibility of the bloodstream carrying some of the chronic infection to set up trouble in other organs. If your doctor diagnoses chronic septic infection in your tonsils, have them out! "My dentist tells me that it is an indispensable Government requirement that dentists operating under the school dental scheme must X-ray the children’s teeth each six months. I really feel that if this is insisted upon, it may be my duty to send my children as private patients and consent to only absolutely. essential X-rays.’ There is no Government requirement that children’s teeth must be X-rayed at sixmonth intervals. This is the situation: Contracting dentists are required to take bite-wing X-rays at the final completion of treatment at age 16 years. The only other time this is required is when a child applies for enrolment and hasn’t come from a school dental clinic. A certificate of fitness must then be supported by an X-ray. At al] other times through the years, routine dental X=rays are left to the discretion of the dentist.