Читать книгу Old Age Deferred. The causes of old age and its postponement by hygienic and therapeutic measures онлайн

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There are, however, still more facts which show the great influence of the thyroid upon the metabolism of fat. Thus we know very well that by thyroid medication we are able to reduce fat considerably. This is due to the action of the thyroid which, as shown by many authors, increases the process of oxidation. In Graves’s disease these processes are augmented. In the opposite condition (myxœdema) they are diminished. By giving thyroid extract we are able to augment, positively, the processes of oxidation in the tissues, as shown by Professor Magnus-Levy,^[37] of Berlin, and many others.

As we have shown in our previous researches, there is an abundant formation of fat in the early cases of degeneration of the thyroid gland, which sometimes progresses to a colossal obesity, which obesity has nothing to do with overfeeding. Such individuals have, as a rule, but poor appetites, and eat very little. Therefore, in a communication to the French Congress of Internal Medicine in Paris, 1904, we differentiated two kinds of obesity: 1. Exogenous obesity—i.e., arising by agencies coming from without by the food we introduce into our body. 2. Endogenous obesity, having its origin within our economy, and depending on changes in certain glands which govern the processes of oxidation—e.g., thyroid sexual glands, pituitary body. This second form is independent of our feeding. As we have shown, this latter can be produced by any of those agencies which are harmful to the ductless glands, especially the thyroid and sexual glands, as, for example, infectious diseases, frequent pregnancies, certain toxic products (alcohol), sexual excesses, climateric. All these conditions may have the effect of producing obesity, which can be explained by an exhaustion of the thyroid and ovaries following a pre-existing hyperactivity.