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New Ideas in Psychology
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[ Two Procedures ] [ Empiricism ] [ Value of these Ideas ]
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Empiricism means that the construction of theories has to be based on actual experience.
As an example of psychological empiricism I give an analysis of the effects of two common food chemicals.
Caffeine
I use caffeine to illustrate the influence that mood has on the ingestion of drugs, particularly mood-changing ones. Contrary to popular belief caffeine does not give energy ; caffeine just makes the person use up their reserves. By experiment I found that the effect of it on the nervous system depends upon the psychological mood of the person at the time of drinking the tea or coffee or cola.
The intensity of the reactions above depends upon the amount of caffeine that is drunk and the intensity of the person’s mood. For myself, when pride (mode of hate) is intense then two cups of moderately strong tea will often generate incipient heart pain ; however, when the intensity of the pride is low, then no pain is felt.
Vitamin C
The other food chemical that I experimented with was vitamin C. Many nutritionists consider that high level dosages (500 milligrammes or more) of vitamin C are harmless. This is not my view.
During my 30s and 40s my gums were always a problem : they were in poor condition, receding, and bled easily, often swelling up. This was in part a sensitivity to acid fruits and to vitamin C tablets. What confused me for a long time was that vitamin C is often recommended as a treatment for bleeding gums – but the more vitamin C that I took the more gum trouble I had. I found that drinking acid fruit juice upset my stomach and furred up my tongue. Apart from making my gums bleed, acid fruits and drinks and vitamin C (in excess of about 50 milligrammes) affected my biting pressure : chewing became painful. Once, on holiday, I breakfasted solely on a half litre of grapefruit juice ; when lunchtime arrived I almost cried with pain as I chewed my salad.
By experiment I finally resolved my gum difficulty. If I took too much vitamin C (100 milligrammes or more) the gums bled easily ; if my intake of vitamin C was insufficient then the gums became puffy and swollen, and my tongue became sensitive to the sharp edges of the teeth. A tomato a day was usually sufficient to keep my gums healthy, except in winter when I had to supplement it with the occasional vitamin C tablet (50 milligrammes). Then once my gums improved I found that I could tolerate a higher level of vitamin C, up to 250 milligrammes. Tomatoes remain the only citrus fruit that cause me no problem.
Therefore, high levels of vitamin C are only beneficial to the gums if the gums are already healthy. The poorer the condition of the gums, the smaller the dosage of vitamin C that is tolerated without harmful effects.
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Copyright
© 2002 Ian Heath
All Rights Reserved
The copyright is mine, and this book is free to use. It can be reproduced anywhere, so long as the source is acknowledged.
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