Your doctor speaks II; The Importance of a Good Diet

The University of Illinois Medical Center campus in Chicago for a sense your doctor speaks during this series doctors in the colleges of medicine dentistry pharmacy nursing and graduate college at the University of Iowa and I will discuss the latest advances in cancer and heart research. Painless dentistry psychiatry nursing care and modern drugs. All of these and more will be presented on your doctor speaks. Your host for this series is Jacques Rogge camera or nature of public service radio and TV programming for the University of Illinois Medical Center campus and champagne Urbana. This is Jack Brigham or bring you another program that we do with members from the University of Illinois Medical Center campus in Chicago. Our guest today is Dr. Henry Lee who's associate professor at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at the Medical Center campus in Chicago. Topic is the importance of a good diet.

Doctor. It's might sound like a silly question to begin with but to most people but I think this is a important question and it is why do we eat. Well we actually have several reasons. Of course one reason there's a lot of people enjoy the food but there are some people who don't and they just eat to live. Now in doing this one has to take into consideration the age of the person who's talking. All of us have to eat because we need energy to do work. And then those of us who are probably somewhat younger than 20 need to eat food because we have to grow those of us who are over 20 have to eat because we have to as a world maintain our body. These are some of the reasons why we like to pay or suppose I was an invalid or laid up or didn't do manual labor. Who has a beach comber for

instance. Could I reduce my intake of food and would this impair my health if I did. Well no man is not a Thank You should increase decrease your intake of food somewhat but not really not very much. I think that it's a common misconception as to how much of the food we eat goes into actual manual work of muscular activity or things like that. They indicated whether we are whether the individual is a child or an adult. There are two reasons why we have to eat. One is to gain the energy to do work. And the other is to either grow or to maintain our present body status. But if we're going to now talk about work we have to consider that there's more to work than just moving muscles. Every part of our body has a job to do and in order to get this job done it's going to have to use energy for example our stomach has a job to do to digest food. Well this is

going to take some energy to do its job. The kidneys have their function to do to produce the urine to get rid of waste products. This too takes energy the Leviton doing its job uses and well these things use energy. The lungs the heart and every part of the body. Now even if we weren't going to do any physical work even if we were evil and we of course still have to breathe and I asked the heart still has to pump the blood in the liver still has to do its job in the kidney its job. And so for these reasons we're going to have to stop taking food. Now it turns out that for most of us that this represents about three quarters of the calories that are in that are in our diet right for this purpose. And so even if we were to do absolutely no work we'd still have to take in a good share of our present diet. You said that word calorie. What is it. Well I don't that's not an easy word to really define.

It's not a thing. But it's really a quantity of energy. And technically speaking it's the amount of energy that's required to raise the temperature of water one degree under certain standard conditions. But I think that for most purposes we could say that it's just an amount of energy. And this is IT person the amount of energy. Ari I thought of that was that thing about I'm fat have no other puts on fat to be sure. Now the relationship between calories and food is really quite simple. We take the food in our body and we digest it and then we assimilate. Now in order for us to use the food we have to oxidize it on source big burn it up and in the process of burning it up where energy is given off. Something like when you have a fire it gets hot and the wood burns up. If the energy comes off in the form of heat. I see. Not in food the energy

comes off in a different way. It comes off in a chemical form but it's still energy and it still can be measured in terms of quantities. Now we have to have a certain number of these calories in order to function. If we don't take enough in then we will lose weight because the reason for this being that the body must have these calories and it will take it from its own self. Now if we take in too many of the calories we have can't get rid of them so easily. So we just start as it were for a rainy day. And some people seem to be very good savers. I hope it is going to be a downpour in your estimation. Let me back up I was going to ask in your estimation what do you what constitutes a good balanced diet. But is there such thing as a good balanced diet what is are those erroneous terms good or balance and diet. Oh no they definitely are not and this is really very important. To have a good balanced diet perhaps I should first explain

something about what food really is excellent food is made up of five or six groups of substances things called carbohydrates those core proteins things called fats. Things called minerals and vitamins and and water. Now we need some of each of these in order to grow more if we're the person as a child or if it's an adult to just maintain themselves and we need a certain amount of these things for energy to you know to keep going and to be able to live. And for example we don't need carbohydrates and how diet we could do very well without you know the Eskimo never takes in carbohydrates at least the ones that don't come in contact with civilization those that do sort of find their way to Candy so they get their share of sugar carbohydrate. But there are other substances enough like proteins. Which we absolutely need we can't do without.

So that you know in terms of a good balance dye have we certainly must have enough good protein for us to eat or we're going to have problems. What do you mean by good protein steaks. Potato right. Well that's another thing in my kind of work we generally translate protein diet into which I say it's chemical terms and there is things like protein and carbohydrates and of course there is no such thing as as a protein food per se because whether we like to admit this or not and some people may be a little squeamish about this point. But really the food that we eat are other living things. They may not be alive when we need them. I hope but. But I mean after all the steak did come from a living animal or vegetable didn't come from a living ply. And so these things represent other forms

of life. And these other forms of life are made up of these basic ingredients of carbohydrates and proteins of fats minerals and vitamins and. Then of course water. And what we do is we take this form. Let's say for example a beef steak which was the muscle of a of a cow and we change this form and we break it down in our body to its basic chemicals and then take these basic chemicals and rebuild them to form our empathy. Q Your kind of muscle. And this is in essence what all foods are taking. They are really a living substance or something that was a living substance and then we go ahead and break it down to a basic chemical form. Reassemble them into a human form and then go ahead. Well this isn't bad if you know it's good it's necessary without it. We can see a

lot my point is that there are reflecting ahead in a science fiction type a world of 50 60 years from now when you take a pill and that's X to be steak and x to potatoes and that's the vegetables and so when I know this is I mean if pills are going to be devised to substitute for food they're going to have to be in the purified chemical form and so that it really won't make any difference in other words a good quality protein is good whether it came from a beef steak or soybean or write us. Well of course they don't have very good proteins they have or any form or. Or is it just as a pure chemical our body would respond exactly the same way to it. Well I can give a good example. Take these vitamin pills. Many of these vitamins are synthesized in a chemical laboratory and put in a pill form. But the way we naturally take them in and how diet they're present in food now chemically they are

identical and it doesn't make any difference whether we take them in the pure form as a pill or as a mixture as form of food. I personally think it's more enjoyable to take in the form of our food. I'm with you on Apple. It also has an awful lot cheaper. And generally speaking it's a lot better for the individual to do it this way. Would you say that. Speaking of vitamin C that there's too much of this business about supplementing your diet with vitamin vitamin B and C and D whatever. Whatever the other vitamins are if you have a well-balanced meal which we've been talking about why do you need vitamins. If you have nothing physically wrong with you I'll say you're a lean call to normal physically. Well I would say you don't need to and I think that. Might even be a mistake to take them. I think that if you really do have a well-balanced diet this then by definition means that there are enough

vitamins. I suppose not I think of it I really didn't answer the question what is a well-balanced diet. But it's a diet. That has enough calories so that we will be able to maintain our weight or growing child enough minerals so that it will support our life and enough vitamins so that will be able to carry out all of the functions of vitamins don't. So if it is a well-balanced diet it by definition has enough vitamin D. Now there are. Many different vitamins but roughly we can divide them into two classes. One of that week my core fat soluble vitamins and the other without a cell you know if it's a fat soluble vitamin and you take any extra in your body will still have this and use it when you don't have enough. The vice if it is a one assignable vitamin then or only extra that you don't need in any one particular time is excrete it in the

urn and is lost to you. And I strongly suspect that many of the children that are given by them until every day on top of a very good diet are probably taking it in the mouth and excrete ing at least 90 percent of it in the United Center right. So it's just a start. For all probably percent of us anyway right. For all practical purposes. And you don't need it but you can. Today's housewife. Now she's listening you know this program Karen she's asking you to me. Can I have a well-balanced diet for my family. Or yes that's really quite easy and simple if you would just follow one rule and it's be almost impossible to have an imbalanced diet a few follows from this rule is to have a varied diet don't have the same thing for breakfast every day don't have the same thing for lunch. Oh sure it's easy to go ahead and take out a box of dry cereal for breakfast every day and give it to

the kids. If you must do this and I don't see why you do but let's say you must at least mix up the serials have a I don't want to use brand names here but use a Koran serial one time an old serial another serial another that's better but it would even be better maybe to have the serial every other day and have given eggs or pancakes or this or that of the other things the others the more varied the better for lunch. Peanut butter jelly is a perfectly good to Precious and reasonably well balanced diet buffet yang for peanut butter but it is missing on some things it is not a perfect diet and therefore you shouldn't have it every day. But it's perfectly alright and as matter of fact it desirable to have several once or twice a week but the chances of having a really good balanced diet much improved if you have. Not only

peanut butter sandwiches but other kind of sandwiches not only sandwiches but still other things. Then in your evening meals if you have. Meat vegetables and starchy food again this is the best way of ensuring that you're going to have a well balanced diet. And of course we also have to make the assumption if we're fortunate enough to have enough money to buy enough of these food yalla the high cost of food today it's getting a problem. What about the U.S. market. Well you know this is one of the things that I'm. Highly rated as you say it's the most perfect food over I already have noticed it just about is the perfect food it is missing a few things it's missing an eye and it's missing in copper and a few of the vitamins. So it couldn't support life for an individual entirely or you could get along just drinking milk and nothing else for quite a while. I know I did in the hospital. Yes I'm sure there are many people who

do. But it is not a good idea to do it but it is pretty much near perfect food. Good supplement to your Alex BOTTEN diet excellent. As a matter of fact if you would have let's say a child would have a quart of milk plus eating almost anything else the chances are that they're going to have a good diet. One of the second most perfect foods and probably not quite as popular as Milk is that other food. Liver. I love it. Soran Cason ever talk about M or cabs or beats either one either want any kind of love or because the liver is pretty much the same whether it be liver of beef liver or chicken liver or even human level. Really D. Of course this is a terrible thing to say but from a scientific point of view probably the most perfect diet would be for a person to be accountable. That way he could be sure that he's going to get everything he needs.

Obviously this is impractical and nothing happened to killing appealing for a liver is really good but leather is really good and interesting enough that it has in rather large quantities. The most important elements that are missing from M.. So really if you have lived in New York you get a man you've got just about a perfect night. I don't know that I'd like to live and just live and know and be kind of boring after a while but you know. But this would be a good thing for some of my friends and you said to vary your meals in the evening. I have never once or twice a week and I think the thing that I always have now died and I think that this should be done. With the idea now of having a number of important foods which should definitely be used every week so that you have for other practical purposes a guarantee of a perfect diet. Certainly milk every day is want an egg or egg products

at least every other day because this is also a very high quality high cholesterol and has been it has been traveling all night and I can come back to that moment but. The needs of well almost any time or fish but I think that needs are probably better than all of the meats clearly Leva would be would rank. Very high and it should be included once a week or something once every other week. This way I might add parenthetically to my one of my own personal hobbies. Cooking I got myself something of a pretty good chef and I'm always amused when people tell me you take something like that with such a strong taste. My kids won't need it. My family will need it. Well I suppose they won't know you got it if people would now take a little time and effort to find out ways of cooking it. You can do a very good

job. And you can make a liver now taste like a dish fit for the best to grow maize so that it would be actually more desirable to your family in say a T-bone steak barbecued liver is very good on the other side. You ever have a Normal is not a fact that I have to try 25 and I can see I have my dietary problems. Oh you better ask the question I ask you about the sky strawberry legs quickly. Well no one is laughing at me there's not a quick answer to that there is an awful lot of cholesterol and eggs but after a cholesterol isn't a poison per se you know we have to have cholesterol in our body and our body is so designed that if we don't take it in our diet will make it. And so then where are we taking our diet the less we make. One and the other way around if we don't take it in. We make it anyway. Now it is true that some people especially overweight people can take

in more cholesterol in the knee so they don't make any but they're still taking in more than any the body does not have a good way of getting rid of it. And so for these people cholesterol becomes a problem because it accumulates and have accumulated in the wrong place. Then they have more serious problems. Now some of the wrong the most obvious wrong place is in the major blood vessels. Unfortunately we don't know why this movement cholesterol will accumulate in any place that it does in the blood vessels or in the liver kidney or right hand. So as a result for these people who aren't weight cholesterol should be overly did it. If possible I might add if they have the right cholesterol the chances are they're going to be avoiding high caloric value food and so they'd be better off. But certainly for a young person or a thin person or a very active person no problem no problem no problem I want to make I just knew that I would be facetious you're a doctor. I have is not a facetious question. What's the biggest

diet problem today as I know very well what your answer is going to be in this country it's the opposite of the rest of the world but in this country it's meeting too much. Yeah family of Iraq factor overweight but what is the rest of the world it's the opposite problem. So you know people what can be done about this overweight problem. Well you obviously stop eating well that's obviously the easiest answer except that to some people it's not so easy to stop eating. But I think that you do have to understand. How shall we say it. What can and can't be done with with diet and control in your way. If you take reasonable attitude towards it chances are you won't get fat. Or at least very flat. And it shouldn't be any problem for you. I think that most people think they get a little or a little get a little less active. They get when they're

frustrated they take some of their frustrations out by eating a little too much because it is satisfying and will they start putting on weight and once they start putting on weight they decide some day gee I want to take it off. Then they find out it goes on awfully easy but comes off awful hard for sure. What is your opinion about these so-called diets in the magazines the newspapers say the quick way of getting off weight is you know by taking Joe shill for the wonder drug or something or whatever. Devil in hiding or something like the drinking man is carrying on a thinking man and therefore stiring all I had to hide didn't just swallow all the soybean oil you want safflower oil yeah I need you on the calories don't count. Well Raul in a sense pretty much the same because they were really good and I was not thinking of Nixon right. And there's really nothing wrong with fooling yourself if fooling yourself really does work. Unfortunately most people are not that don't have them they don't fool

themselves. But what these diets really are doing is two things First that calling attention to the fact you have been watching what you eat even if you're overweight This is probably very good and the second thing that they're trying to do is to try to trick you into eating less. And there are lots of ways of doing it. For example as a high protein diet which if you don't eat. Eating too much of it it works very well. The high protein diets. Well you could eat a pound or two of potatoes but I don't think you could eat a pound to this day. Steak is very high in protein. There's something about protein in our bodies which will say you don't need too much of it. So it fills you up quickly so you stop eating less and so it works this way but I have to interrupt you Doctor I'm I'm afraid that that we just ran out of time Mr. M. wrote most an important and very interesting topic the importance of a good diet. And our guest today has been Dr. Henry

Jeffie associate professor of biological chemistry at the University of Illinois College of Medicine. You have just heard another in the series your doctor speaks produced by the University of Illinois Medical Center campus in Chicago in cooperation with this station during the series such topics as cancer and heart research. Painless dentistry psychiatry nursing care and modern drugs will be presented on your doctor speaks. Your host for this series is Jack Gray camera coordinator of public service radio and TV programming for the universe their own II Medical Center campus and Champaign Urbana. Your doctor speaks is produced and directed by Mr. Ricka. This program was distributed by the national educational radio network.