5. Overeating Undermines Health

Overeating is probably the greatest culprit in the undermining of our health. It is the primary cause of most digestive problems, and impairment of the digestion leads inevitably to the breakdown of the organism.

R.T. Trall, M.D. (Digestion and Dyspepsia, pp. 82-83) said, "It is a great mistake to regard dyspepsia as peculiarly or especially a disease of the stomach." He said that a multitude of organs and structures are essentially cooperative in the digestive processes, and they are just as co-implicated in the derangement of these processes.

"The debility of the stomach or other digestive organs, in any case of dyspepsia, is no greater and no worse than that of all other parts of the body. Indeed, the difference is just the other way, for nutrition, being the first and last process of organic life, all other parts of the system are disproportionately debilitated when the digestion function is impaired. Dyspepsia is, therefore, but a name for universal physical deterioration....The error of regarding dyspepsia as a local disease instead of a constitutional infirmity, leads to the mischievous practice of local medication." (Stimulants, tonics, nervines, opiates, purgatives, etc.) "These are excellent methods for curing dyspepsia by killing the patient, or to mitigate symptoms by destroying vitality.

Laboratory experiments have demonstrated repeatedly that overeating is a major cause of cancer. The following experiment has been repeated hundreds of times at various research laboratories; many times at the finest cancer research institute in the world. One hundred rats are bred to develop breast cancer by the age of one year, then separated into two groups. One group is given free access to food, the other group is given the same food in limited amounts. All rats in the first group develop cancer, but only 20% of the rats in the restricted food group develop cancer.

Conventional diets and overeating (or even overeating of the best foods) result inevitably in damage to the organism. The body is forced to make adaptations, and to gradually increase its tolerance of toxins, bringing it closer to common digestive maladies, followed by impairments of the entire organism.