The Blood Reservoir System and Heart Disease

Often the usefulness of plain truths is lost by impractical demands for their “proof,” when all that is necessary is the acceptance of their practical application. For instance, estimates indicate that 90 per cent of all heart disease arise from circulatory disorders. This should lead to the obvious conclusion that the disease called “heart failure” is not then so much a disease of the heart itself as it is a consequence of a series of degenerative changes which are climaxed by finally involving the heart only by reason of its strategic position in the circulatory system. The same logic would demand that the treatment of heart disease would follow the same course, its reversal being dependent upon the ratio of improvement brought about in the general circulatory mechanisms. Since this would include arteriosclerosis and other degenerative processes, a basic concept of total bodily health would be a fundamental requirement. The treatment of the body by substances foreign to its economy–drugs–can only be considered as a possible stalemate, while the real burden, malnutrition, goes on increasing its deleterious effects until the “crutches” are no longer able to avail.

No Single Cure

The most important lesson to be learned from this evaluation is that no single factor will probably ever be found to cure “heart disease”–or any other degenerative disease, for that matter. Treatment and prevention will depend upon a variety of essential foods, essential for the functioning of the human mechanism as a whole, and in this case, for the circulatory pattern in particular. In evaluating factors to determine their benefits in heart problems, therefore, we need to look to their effects not so much upon the heart muscle itself, but rather as to their benefits upon the circulation system in general. We may learn how the total workload placed upon the heart by their deficiency has become so overburdening that the heart itself, with all of its inherent endurance and efficiency, cannot meet the demand and the collapse is due to simply requiring the heart to perform beyond its capacity–the real cause of heart failure.

Capillary Reservoirs

The question then arises: How does deficiency permit this workload to exist? The answer, in part, may be found in understanding the functions of a part of the body which has never been seen by the naked eye–the capillary beds. Wm. Harvey’s explanation of circulation–all the more remarkable because he also knew nothing of the existence of capillaries–was discounted for many years. because “no connection” could be found between the out-going and incoming blood (arteries and veins). It was not until microscopic studies were made that the capillaries were found to be an anatomical fact. It was found that though microscopic in size, the capillaries represented a vast amount of surface space in the body–estimates ranging up to 10 acres–and that this capacity was utilized as a “reservoir,” in which the blood was shunted, not only from veins to arteries, but also from various compartments in the body according to changing demands.

Capillary Chemistry

For this reason, it would be well for us to understand something about the factors which influence capillary activity. We know two important facts about their function: First, that oxygen causes these capillaries to constrict and directs the blood into the circulatory compartment required by the heart itself, and second, we know that lactic acid–produced during exercise–causes these capillaries to dilate, causing the blood to course through their channels to supply the nutrients for tissue sustenance (carbon dioxide, a co-partner in this effect). Now, both of these effects are necessary for normal function of the body. It is only when an unbalance exists that the body as a whole suffers.

Simply stated, the facts are these: Capillary engorgement may result from oxygen lack or lactic acid excess. Vitamin E is a factor in oxygen metabolism, up to 250 per cent of normal requirements being shown in test animals. Another oxygen metabolizing factor is vitamin C complex, it being known to increase the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood. As to lactic acid, we know that vitamin B1 exerts its effects, in part, by oxidizing lactic acid….Note the rapid pulse and water-logging of tissues in the vitamin B1 deficiency disease, Beri-Beri, often called “Wet” Beri-Beri.

Source of Deficiencies

Wheat germ oil, containing vitamin E factors, has been observed to correct the capillary engorgement state, bruising easily, in a remarkably high number of cases. Symptoms of vitamin B1 deficiency–lactic acid excess–clear up when carbohydrates are reduced and vitamin B1-rich foods are added to the diet. The evidence points to the culprit: processed foods–the rancidity of oils occurring shortly after the whole grains are exposed to air and making them useless as vitamin factors, a good reason for the high cost of fresh, natural oils. The refined sugars, devoid of their mineral content, are clearly a contributing factor to lactic acid excess.

Lesson to Be Learned

These facts show us, not how much we know of the human economy, but how little; that nature has wondrously prepared the human mechanism and that tampering with her original plan can only lead to bodily disturbances in many devious ways.