Dr. Paul Dudley White, a heart specialist whose patients have included former President Eisenhower, Tuesday warned against soft living and what he termed "over nourishment."
Dr. White said Americans today eat such rich foods and in such abundance that autopsies on young people in their early twenties have disclosed fatty deposits on the linings of their arteries-something unusual a few decades ago.
A native of Boston who received his MD from Harvard in 1911, Dr. White said there is a certain area of Georgia in the Soviet Union which has a virtual colony of centenarians.
He said a study is presently being made of the families of the age 100 and over men and women to determine how they habitu ally enjoy such longevity. GIVES LECTURE
He said, however, that he feels that this group of people reaches this age because of heredity and not their diet or any particular type of wine or any other cause.
Dr. White, a former president of the American Heart Association, was in New Orleans to address a medical student group at the Louisiana State University au-^ ditonum. The talk was a Rudolph Matas lecture sponsored by the Beta Iota Chapter of Nu Sigma Nu at Tulane University.
Instead of 50-mile walks, it would be better, mused Dr. White, if people got in the habit of walking two to four miles a day.
Escalators, golf carts, automobiles, elevators and other such conveniences all contribute to a soft and debilitating existence, said Dr. White.
He said once, just for change, a person should sometimes run up an escalator, or walk up a few flights of stairs. He emphasized use of the leg muscles for overall bodily health.
AGAINST 'EASE'
He spoke very much like Theodore Roosevelt praching against a life of "ignoble ease" and in favor of the "strenuous life."
A man ought to have a doctor's prescription to be allowed to use a golf cart, said Dr. White with a grin. Atherosclerosis is a rarity among Japanese and certain African peoples because of
high protein, low-fat diets and other external and hereditary factors, said Dr. White.
He told the group about a friend who lived to be 107 years of age and whose sole distinguishing characteristic was a predilection for a daily walk for some dis-1 tance.
He said the average American should exercise for at least seven hours strenuously each week.
Arterial stoppage in the area of the brain is not an infrequent cause of death, he noted, adding that blood pumped to the brain must overcome the disadvantage of gravitational pull.
PHOTO: ADDRESSING a group of medical students at Louisiana
State University Medical School auditorium is Dr. Paul Dudley White, heart specialist whose patients have included former president Eisenhower. He talked to the group under the sponsorship of the Beta Iota chapter of Nu Sigma Nu at Tulane University Medical School. His lecture was one of a series of Rudolph Matas lectures.
