Section Headings [ Two Procedures] [ Empiricism] [ Value of these Ideas]

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.

• If the mood is one of shock : then caffeine is beneficial.

• If the subconscious mood is fear : then caffeine eases the fear, but drains the body of energy by inducing a low blood-sugar reaction, hypoglycaemia.

• If the subconscious mood is pride (mode of hate) : then caffeine produces pain around the heart ; however, when the intensity of the pride is low, then no pain is felt.

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, during the high-stress period of my psycho-analysis when pride (mode of hate) was intense then two cups of moderately strong tea would often generate incipient heart pain.

Vitamin C

The other food chemical that I experimented with was vitamin C. Many nutritionists consider that high level dosages (500 milligrams 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 milligrams) 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 milligrams 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 milligrams). Then once my gums improved I found that I could tolerate a higher level of vitamin C, up to 250 milligrams. 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.

Copyright @2002  Ian Heath
All Rights Reserved

The copyright is mine and the articles are free to use. They can be reproduced anywhere, so long as the source is acknowledged.