Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-12-19
Personl Health Service
BY WILLIAM BRADY, M, D.
Roughage or Filler.

Formerly we assumed that If one
received an adequate quantity of pro-
tein, fat and carbohydrate food mate
rial, all was we'll with nutrition. Then
we learned that mineral material was
essential for normal nutrition. In the
last few years we have learned that
vitamins, at least four kinds, are also
essential for normal nutrition. Now
there is just one more factor that the
newer knowledge of nutrition adds to
the essentials, and that is roughage or
filler.
Some of the foremost physicians of
the day are at present putting up
Kind of despairing resistance to this
last recognized essential. The trouble
with these good doctors is that they
are so close to the pathological they
see so much disease, they are so IA
millar with organic impairments and
alterations of function, that they can't
quite distinguish normal digestion
from the digestive difficulties of their
patients. So, it seems to me. the bet
ter the doctor in his special line of
practice the less attention should we
pay to his stern disapproval of the
practice or habit of eating such indi-
gestible things as bran, for example.
Bran may be very bad medicine for
most of the folks the doctor knows
But he doesn't know well people-peo.
ple give him a rather wide berth I'M
| less and until they get sick.
Certainly the Observation-Disclosures
| deal with normal conditions, not in.
validism-deem mere bulk or filler a
necessary factor in the digestive move
ments, and we must endeavor to free
our mind from the fine old fancies
| about pepsin and such things and
Grasp the facts of the digestive proc
ess.
People commonly cherish the fall.
! lacy that milk, if one takes an ex.
elusive milk diet, or cheese, if one
| eats it freely. is 'constipating" It
| isn't. No food is constituting. That
| notion is morbid twist or turn of
| the physiological fact that milk or
| cheese is not laxative. 1t is not laxa-
| tive simply because. in normal diges-
| ton, it leaves so little residue. so lit
| tie bulk, filler, roughage, waste mat
| ter in the intestine. That is all there
is about it. But some people who
| ought to take milk freely, or who
| should enjoy eating cheese, avoid
| these excellent items of food because
| they imagine milk and cheese bind"
| the bowels. Remember, we are speak
| ing of we'll folk, and not of invalids
| Invalds should follow the advice of
| their own physicians about diet, in
every instance. Well people may take
my advice or leave it. 1t is free Of
| charge.
| In health if one should happen to
| be restricted for a time to a diet Of
milk or cheese. costive state of the
bowels would be quite natural and
| should ccasion no anxiety and re-
! quire no measure of correction
But in ordinary circumstances it is
we'll to include in the diet a reasona-
BILE amount of indigestible roughage,
| filler or bulk, such as the cellulose or
woody fiber of the coarse vegetables
the bran or outer layer Of cereals, the
skins and seeds of such fruits as
| grapes. prunes, currants, berries,
cherries, apples provided these are
cleam and the skins Of baked potato;
and the fodder relishesAspinach, let
tuce, greens, celery, cucumbers, and
| so on.
Copyright. 1927