Fitness

Here is chlorine which originally came from table salt; like the shuttle from Times Square to Grand Central, it shifts continuously in and out of the cell, thereby aiding the body in removing carbon dioxide. Here are all the trace minerals, the catalysts, or speeder-uppers; they are the traffic cops which keep all traffic moving at a fantastic speed. Movement ‘can take place without them, but it is slow and the traffic jams. Here is cobalt in the vitamin B12 portion of certain enzymes; iodine is part of thyroxin; zinc is helping the messenger, insulin; here are magnesium, fluorine, and all the other minerals, each helping the cell to function.

Just outside the cell wall is sodium, which may have originally come from meat or table salt. In some way not understood, sodium carries on a lifelong duel with potassium, largely inside the cell. This mysterious duel is apparently fought over the water supply. When the sodium appears to be winning, the cell contains more water, but potassium is withdrawn and excreted in the urine; when potassium wins, much sodium and water are lost. The referee for this duel appears to be a messenger from the outside of the adrenal glands.

Perhaps with the help of these duelers and of calcium and vitamin C, this cell has an amazing power of selectivity. If poisons, harmful chemicals, allergins, and/or bacterial toxins are carried in the tissue fluid, this healthy cell refuses to let them enter. On the other hand, if the nutrition is good, the tissue fluid carries every nutrient to this cell; the cell invites whatever nutrients it needs to enter, withdraws what it wants, and leaves the remainder to be carried on to other cells. When too little of a nutrient is supplied, the cell adjusts itself as best it can; when too much is given, the cell fights back but is sometimes defeated.

Every nutrient has its own duties; yet each works cooperatively with the others. Vitamin E helps linoleic acid, linoleic acid helps vitamin D, vitamin D helps phosphorus, phosphorus helps calcium, calcium helps vitamin C, ad infinitum. No nutrient plays a hermit role.

Many activities which take place in this cell are brought about by other substances; although neither the activities nor the substances are described, both are known and understood by scientists. There are still, however, myriads of unknown activities and unknown substances which scientists have yet to understand.

This cell with all its processes and activities, multiplied by billions and billions, is you. The degree to which this cell can maintain its ideal structure and can carryon its normal functions is the degree of your health. A seemingly minor lack of a single nutrient or of many nutrients can damage the structure and/or interfere with its functions; a severe deficiency of one or more nutrients can bring about disaster. It is the amount of nutrients supplied to the cell itself which determines the state of your health. Malnutrition does not necessarily mean a faulty diet or even faulty absorption; it means only that less than enough of one or more nutrients reaches the cell.

The sum total of all the never-ceasing activities of all the cells is spoken of as metabolism. When these hundreds of activities, although still carried on at fantastic speed, are at their slowest, as when you lie motionless not even digesting food, the total is called basal metabolism. A lack of any nutrient or nutrients can slow down the activities of the cells; less food is needed, and unwanted weight may be gained. Only when all nutrients are generously suppli€d elm the activities of the body be maintained at ideal speed, and the metabolism remain normal.