Breakfast.
People who eat a
normal breakfast each morning-usually consisting of fiber and a protein source like
eggs, meat, or soyhave been shown in repeated
studies to be healthier than those who do not. The most immmediate
benefits from breakfast are increased energy levels and a better ability to
concentrate during the day (especially true with school-aged children, studies
show). But it is also clear that eating breakfast can help ward off disease.
Because on a secondary level, people who skimp on breakfast for lack of time or
in the hopes of losing weight-tend to compensate by gorging later in the day, often
on junk food. No surprise, then, that people who regularly skip breakfast, and
end up with less than ideal diets, are also twice as likely to develop insulin
resistance syndrome, a metabolic disorder that can lead to diabetes and
coronary heart disease.
Fish.
Fish oil contains
high amounts of two omega-3 fatty acids-EPA and DHA-that benefit the heart and
blood vessels and are essential to normal brain development. These fatty acids
have been shown to lower blood pressure, block substances that cause inflammation,
reduce the formation of blood clots, and prevent cardiovascular damage caused
by triglycerides. That’s a fat anyone could love. Some other benefits of eating
fish may also stem from the fact that it takes the place of red meat in the
diet. Either way; there is overwhelming evidence that a diet rich in fish can
keep the mind sharp, protecting it against Alzheimer’s disease and other ills
of aging. One study in the Archives of Neurology found that elderly people who
ate fish at least once a week did better on tests of memory and mental acuity
than their peers who did not. They also had a 10 percent slower decline in
mental skills each year, and those who ate twice as much fish showed a 13
percent slower annual decline during the course of the six-year study.
Except for pregnant
women and breast-feeding mothers who are most vulnerable to the effects of
contaminants found in fish, it’s best that women in these groups stick to
canned light tuna or salmon and steer clear of fish with high mercury levels.
This goes for other adults as well. The fish most likely to be contaminated are
large deep-sea species that are closer to the top of the food chain, such as
shark, swordfish, king mackerel, and tilefish.
Red Beets Detox Liver?
Studies on animals
have indeed found that a pigment in red beets called betalain
can slightly elevate levels of an enzyme that helps fight cancer in liver
cells, and that the pigment might also help protect against other diseases,
like colon cancer. The enzymes are specifically thought to detoxify carcinogens
and purge them from the body.
There’s just one
small problem. Ever notice how beets can give your urine a reddish tinge? That’s
because many people don’t have the ability to digest red beet pigment; it just
passes right through their digestive systems-with presumably little or no
effect on the liver. Beets, it should be mentioned, are also packed with
beta-carotene, carotenoids, and flavonoids. But then again, so are most fruits
and vegetables.
Grilled Meat and Cancer.
A study in 2002
looked at more than eight hundred Americans and found that those who ate the
most grilled or barbecued meat seemed to double their risk of developing
pancreatic cancer, even after the researchers adjusted for smoking, age, and
other risk factors. Studies conducted in Europe, Asia, and South America have
found the same thing. Thus here some tips that can lower your risk.:
• Because polycyclic
aromatic hydrocarbons are created in part by hot coals, you can avoid them
simply by using a gas grill.
• Since both of these
carcinogens are found in meat cooked at high temperatures or exposed to
flare-ups, you should preheat your food in a microwave, which reduces the time
it needs to spend on the grill.
• Marinating has been
shown to have a strong protective effect, probably because the liquid prevents
burning. According to the American Institute for Cancer Research, even
marinating for a few minutes can reduce the amount of heterocyclic amines
formed by as much as 99 percent. It's best to use marinades that are spicy or
contain an acidic base, like citrus juice or vinegar, and to limit the amount
of oil you use to prevent flare-ups. You should use about a half cup of
marinade for every pound of meat. You don't have to completely immerse or drown
the food, but it should be turned occasionally (using a plastic ziplock bag to marinate your food works great). Fish needs
about twenty minutes in marinade, and poultry and red meat require about
forty-five minutes.
• Go for meats that
are lean and well trimmed, since they have less fat
that can drip into the flames. Chicken cudets,
shrimp, fish, and lean pieces of meat are probably your best bets, while ribs
and sausages--both extremely high in fat-are not. You should also keep your
cuts of meat small, so they have less surface area and don't need as much time
on the grill.
• Try to keep a spray
botde with water nearby so you can control any
flare-ups. And instead of placing your food directly on the grill, cover the
grate with punctured aluminum foil. This not only protects your food against
smoke and flare-ups, but also keeps fatty juices from dripping into the flames
or coals.
• Stay away from
charred or blackened foods! These are the parts that are particularly
hazardous.
• It's the chemicals
in grilled meat you need to avoid. Grilled veggies you can eat without concern.
Chlorinated water.
If you're wondering
why bladder cancer, of all the cancers out there, is the one that shows the
strongest link, consider where the liquids you drink spend most of their time
in your body.
However in most
countries standards for the amounts of chlorinated by-products allowed in water
were tightened. Several health agencies, including the World Health
Organization, have also cast doubt on any potential link, saying the evidence
is weak and pointing out that any risk from trihalomethanes and other chlorine
byproducts is tiny in comparison to the risks associated with drinking nonchlorinated water.
That last point
should not be taken lightly. The medical literature is rife with recent
examples of countries that relaxed their chlorination standards and were then
immediately racked by outbreaks of severe diseases. When chlorination was
stopped in Peru, for instance, there was a cholera epidemic of 300,000 cases.
To health officials,
trying to protect public water supplies is a delicate balance between ridding
them of germs that cause diseases such as cholera and giardia and minimizing
the hazards of disinfection by-products (referred to commonly as DBPs).
The Environmental
Protection Agency has set the maximum level for trihalomethanes in tap water at
80 micrograms per liter, and the maximum level for haloacetic
acids at 60 micrograms per liter. Fortunately, in many cities today the levels
fall below that.
Plastic Containers and Dioxins.
Plastic wraps and
containers can indeed expose you to certain chemicals. But dioxins aren't one
of them. In fact, dioxins arc: almost never found in commercial plastics. If
they were, they could be liberated by the heat in a microwave and eventually
end up in your food, though that wouldn't happen in a plastic water bottle kept
at room temperature or in a container that's being frozen because it takes heat
for this chemical reaction to get going. In any case, manufacturers don't use
them because of the danger. But the link between plasticizers and cancer, if
any, has not been Scientifically proven and is widely debated.
Here are some tips:
• Use only plastic
wrap that says on the packaging intended for microwave use, and never let it
directly touch your food when heating it.
• Make sure any
plastic wrap you use is placed loosely your food (and be sure to leave
one corner open) so that steam can get out. You don’t want any droplets that
collect on the underside of the wrap to get into your food, since those may
contain chemicals from the wrap.
• Never heat any
plastic container that does not say on its label or packaging that it’s
intended for microwave use (t cates that it’s made to withstand high
temperatures). Containers that aren’t designed specifically for use in a
microwave car warp, increasing your likelihood of exposure to plasticizers
putting you at risk for spills and burns.
• Things like
margarine tubs and carryout containers from restaurants are not designed to
withstand very high t tures, so never use them in
your microwave.
• Don’t use any
containers that hold prepared micro meals more than once.
• It’s best to cook in
your microwave with pots or containers made from inert materials, like ceramics
or heat-resistant
It’s also okay to use
cooking bags, parchment paper, and white microwave-safe paper towels.
Echinacea.
A 2005 study
published in the New England Journal of Medicine involved 437 people who
volunteered to have cold viruses dripped into their noses. Some took echinacea
in 300 milligram doses for a week beforehand (the dose most often used by
consumers), some were given a placebo, and others were given either echinacea
or the placebo at the time they were infected.
For five days, the
subjects were secluded in a hotel and examined closely. The echinacea groups
were just as likely to catch a cold as the others. They showed no difference in
symptoms, no difference in viral secretions, and no increases in their levels
of interleukin-8, an immune system protein that many people believed was the
mechanism behind echinacea’s curative powers.
But that study and
others clearly haven’t done much to knock echinacea off its pedestal. Companies
are still marketing it as a cure for the cold, and few people have been
clearing their medicine cabinets of echinacea bottles. There’s some evidence
from the decades of research on echinacea that people who take it for long periods
of time in small doses-not just when they get a cold, or ;Ii
week before they get a cold, but for months or years-get sick less often.
Green Tea.
In 2004, a study of
breast cancer in more than thirty-five thousand Japanese women showed green tea
didn’t play a rol in preventing it. But to be fair,
there have been some that favored it. One study in Los Angeles in 2003 found
drastically lower rates of breast cancer among women who drank the bitter brew
on a regular basis. And two other studies in China, where green tea is a
dietary staple, found that green tea drinkers had lower rates of stomach
cancer, esophageal cancer, and precancerous oral plaques. One of those studies
found that it took little more than two cups of green tea a day to see an
effect. But the truth is that more studies found no effect.
Selenium.
Various studies have
chipped away at the assertion that selenium has any ability to fight heart
disease. A large study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology in
2006 followed more than a thousand American adults for seven and a half years,
some of whom took 200 micrograms of selenium daily and others who were assigned
placebos. After taking blood samples twice a year, and controlling had no
effect on the risk of developing heart disease from it. Other studies have
found that combining selenium with vitamin E, has also little or no effect on
heart disease.
But the news hasn’t
all been negative. Studies have found that people who take selenium have lower
rates of colorectal, prostate, and lung cancer than their peers who don’t. The
findings are widely debated, but they certainly hold promise.
Sitting up Straight?
Studies in 2006
through direct visual evidence have shown that that position increases stress
on the lumbar disks in your lower back. The study that used new magnetic
resonance imaging machines that allow people to sit instead of lie down, a team
of researchers at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland looked at twenty-two
volunteers who sat in three positions. The first two positions, sitting upright
and sitting with the body hunched forward, produced the greatest spinal disk
movement, causing the internal disk material to misalign. The third position,
in which the subjects reclined at a 135-degree angle with their feet planted on
the floor, created the least strain.
Reading in the Dark, and Glasses?
Most ophthalmologists
and eye experts, are adamant that the strain reading puts on your eyes-in poor
light or not is safe. It may create fatigue,” he explained, “but it can’t hurt
your eyes.
How well a person can
see is largely determined by the size of the eyeball, something a pair of
glasses or reading in the dark cannot change. The average eye is about an inch
from the cornea, in the front, to the retina, in the back. When the eyes are
either too large (nearsightedness) or too small (farsightedness), the cornea
cannot properly focus images: on the retina, and glasses can help compensate.
The contrast between poor and normal vision becomes more obvious when people
wear glasses for a while and then take them off. But glasses have no lasting
effect on eyesight.
Pregnant Women on Airplanes?
A study on flight
attendants from 1973 to 1994, published in the Journal of Occupational and
Environmental Medicine, examined the medical records and work activity of 1,751
pregnant flight attendants, did not find high rates of complications, it did
find that the flight attendants who worked during the early stages of pregnancy
had a slightly higher risk of miscarriage than their peers who took time off.
But it was unclear
whether undue stress or various other factors were to blame. Another study
published a year earlier, for example, showed that while pregnant flight
attendants who logged a lot of hours had a higher risk of miscarriage than their
colleagues who took time off, they had the same risk of miscarriage as other
working women (about 10-20 percent). After reviewing years of research, the
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released a report in 2001
saying that radiation exposure for the typical pregnant air traveler was
minimal, and that the low pressures in the cabin were unlikely to affect oxygen
supply to a fetus. The group recommended that women fly only up until their
thirty-sixth week of pregnancy not because there is any risk to the baby after
that, but because you risk going into labor during a flight.
Mosquito’s
Female mosquitoes-the
only ones that bite-are attracted to the carbon dioxide that we exhale, our
body heat, and chemicals in sweat like lactic acid. Obviously every human has
these things in common, as do our warm-blooded animal buddies. But scientists
have found that bite-resistant people produce about a dozen compounds that
either prevent mosquitoes from detecting them or drive them away. People like
me, who get bitten frequently, lack these compounds that can mask their smell.
Why some people and animals have this built-in shield is not yet known. It may
have had some crucial evolutionary purpose, like protecting us from malaria and
other mosquito-transmitted diseases.
But if you don’t have
the shield, don’t despair. You can make yourself less attractive by using
unscented deodorants, lotions, and soaps. Repellents made with
diethyltoluamide can also make a difference. A study in the New England Journal
of Medicine in 2002 found that sprays with even small amounts of deet protected wearers for up to five hours, while special
wristbands and sprays with citronella protected them for only minutes. You
might have also heard the old wives’ tale about warding off mosquitoes by
eating garlic, bananas, and other foods. There is no evidence to back any of
this up.
Playing Dead With Bears?
Animals, like humans,
play dead under the assumption that a predator will either lose interest or
shift out of attack mode and make a crucial mistake that allows a chance for a
clean escape. One study in the 1970s looked at what happened when captive foxes
were given a chance to go after live ducks. In every case, the ducks would go
limp when the foxes caught them. Sometimes, this worked to their advantage. The
foxes would carry them to a storage site and turn their backs, giving the sly
ducks an opportunity to get away.
But it didn't work
often. Most of the time, it simply made things easier for the predator.
Similarly, it's not always such a good idea to play dead with bears, especially
since different types of bears attack for different reasons and react in
different ways. Bear attacks can generally be divided into two groups: predatory
and defensive. Each calls for a different strategy. Black and grizzly bears,
the two you're most likely to confront in the wild, are capable of both types
of attack.
Those involving
grizzlies tend to be defensive, when the animal feels threatened. Playing dead
while lying on your stomach and covering your head and neck lets the bear know
you're not a threat and can cause it to back off. Black bears, on the other
hand, are smaller and shyer then grizzlies and usually flee from humans. But
when they do attack their motive tends to be predatory, meaning playing dead
isn't going to work. Neither will running away. If it looks like the bear is
after your food, it's best to drop it and back away. But if it keeps pressing,
be aggressive. Yell, shout, use. pepper spray, raise your arms and make yourself
as strong and big as possible may be best to scare it of.
What the leading
media proclaims at times may be nonsense, but it can also be deadly. For
example, thanks to the media, Malaria now kill’s thousand’s
of children a day more, and could be prevented without difficulty. The known
media attitude here is that if it's a chemical, it must be bad, and if it's
DDT, it must be awful. And that's fine if you're a rich white environmentalist.
It's not so fine if you're a poor black kid who is about to lose his life from
malaria. In the 1950s we sprayed DDT indiscriminately, but it only takes a tiny
amount to prevent the spread of malaria. If sprayed on walls of an African hut,
a small amount will keep mosquitoes at bay for half a year. That makes it a wonderful
malaria fighter. But today DDT is rarely used to fight malaria because
environmentalists' demonization of it causes others to shun it.
Media attention in
such cases invites politicians to do the wrong thing. In this case, the result
of the media getting it so wrong is millions of deaths. The media in such
cases also kills reputations, particularly when sensationalism and the
herd mentality are in play. Serious subjects, worthy of careful examination,
are often treated with a kind of journalistic shorthand that cheats readers and
viewers, while ruining lives. In this next example, innocent children became
unknowing pawns. (1)
A classic example of
journalists falling for a stunningly stupid scientific scare-falling en masse and really hard-was the outcry over treating food
with radiation. The irradiation process would give consumers wonderful new
options: strawberries that stay fresh three weeks, and chicken without the
harmful levels of salmonella that the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention says kill six hundred Americans every year, and cause countless
cases of food poisoning. (The last time you thought you had the flu, you may
have really been sick from bacteria on chicken-this is no myth! Wash the
counter, your hands, and everything that touches raw meat, because they are all
crawling with potentially dangerous germs.)
But reporters and environmental
activists don't worry much about the horrible toll from bacteria. For some
reason, even when bacteria pose a far greater risk, the media obsess about
chemicals and radiation.They don't worry much about
bacteria because bacteria is natural. But radiation is natural too. We are
exposed to natural radiation every minute of our lives: cosmic radiation from
space, radiation from the ground, and radiation from radon in the air we
breathe. Every year, the average U.S. citizen is exposed to natural radiation
equal to about 360 dental X-rays. The reporters and protesters probably didn't
know that, but even if they did, they'd still be upset because irradiation
plants propose passing radiation through food.
People think food
irradiation makes food radioactive, but it doesn't; the radiation just kills
the bacteria, and passes right out of the food. That's why the FDA and USDA
approved the process a long time ago. Spices have been irradiated for more than
twenty years. Irradiation is good for us. If it were more common, all of us
would suffer fewer instances of food poisoning and we could have fruits and
vegetables that stay fresh weeks longer. But scare mongering has kept it from
catching on. (2)
Pasteurization also
met public skepticism when it was introduced. Louis Pasteur discovered that
heating milk would kill bacteria, but critics charged that pasteurization was
"meddling with nature," and that it might change the properties of
the food-or contaminate it. Irradiation might save as many lives, if the scaremongers
would just get out of the way. Many reporters believe the activists because
"something must be causing the cancer epidemic." Mysterious and
unnatural additions to our environment are an easy suspect. "No wonder
there's so much more cancer!" say reporters.
Plus the world is too
crowded! We've heard this one for decades. News articles warn of "the
population bomb," a "tidal wave of humanity," and plead "No
more babies." Clueless alarmists like Ted Turner warn, "There's lots
of problems all over the world caused by too many people." It's true that
the world population today is more than six billion people, but who says that's
too many?
But people are our
greatest wealth. More people is a good thing. They're more brains that might
cure cancer, more hands to build things. Yet the media runs pictures of
starving masses in Africa and blames that on overpopulation. One writer,
worrying about Niger, said that we must "reduce birth rates drastically,
otherwise permanent famine ... will be the norm." But Niger's population
density is nine persons per square kilometer, minuscule compared to population
densities in wealthy countries like the USA (28), Japan (340), the Netherlands
(484), and Hong Kong (6.621). The number of people isn't the problem. Famine is
caused by things like civil wars and government corruption that interfere with
the distribution of food. Sudan had famine when government militia forces
stripped the land of cattle and grain. In Niger, 2.5 million people are
starving because food production is managed by the state. The absence of
property rights, price controls, and other cruel socialist experiments under
way in Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, and Lesotho are starving millions more.
In Zimbabwe, it's Robert Mugabe's kleptocracy that's doing the damage.The number of people isn't the problem. Improved
technology now allows people to grow more food on less land. The UN says the
world overproduces food today. The clueless media, in pursuit of the scare du
jour, do us a nasty disservice by focusing on the wrong things. Because of the
constant parade of frightening stories, huge amounts of money and energy are
spent on minuscule risks. In the meantime, millions die of malaria, thousands
die from bacteria, and most everyone is frightened needlessly. There are real
problems in the world. The media ought to focus on them. Let’s look at some
other more popular issues:
Mouthwash
Bad breath comes from
bacteria in the mouth. Mouthwash does kill germs, but here’s a dirty little
secret: The alcohol in most mouthwashes(for example Listerine has up to 27
percent alcohol) reduces the bacterial count, but the alcohol dries out your
mouth and leaves behind a beautiful home where bacteria grow even faster. So
the mouthwash that briefly reduced the bad breath makes it worse later.
Everyone agreed, however, that the best remedy for bad breath is good oral
hygiene: flossing, brushing your teeth for at least two minutes, and brushing
your tongue. It also helps to keep your mouth moist by drinking lots of water.
That also flushes some of the bacteria down.
Fund Managers and Stock Analysts
In fact two-thirds of
fund managers underperformed the market every year. They are well-educated
people who call and visit individual companies, and study the balance sheets,
new products, and marketing techniques. You'd think this would give them an
advantage. But it doesn't, says Princeton's Professor Malkiel,
because what they learn is information all the analysts have. Malkiel wrote a book about the process called A Random Walk
Down Wall Street. He studied stock movements of the past, and concluded that
the advice produced by the in-house experts has little value. "Most of it
is just absolute nonsense," Malkiel writes,
"and most of it is really designed to get people to trade more than they
should."
Banks and
brokerage firms want you to trade more, because they charge a commission on
every trade. But despite floors of skyscrapers filled with people analyzing
stocks, year after year the trading advice that comes out of most of the big
Banks and brokerage firms is no better at selecting winners than throwing darts
at the stock table, or having a monkey throw darts. In fact, the advice is
usually worse! I know this is hard to believe, but people who chart the
brokerage firms' recommendations say it's true.
For example over the
fifteen years ending October 31, 2005, only 5.72 percent of actively managed
mutual funds had beaten the 500 stocks that make up the Standard & Poor's
Index. In other words, 94 percent did worse. Over that fifteen-year period, you
had a 94 percent better chance of making money if you ignored the advice from
those well-paid professional stock-pickers. I'm not saying that this is a scam.
Banks and brokers might genuinely believe they can do it. The evidence is, however,
that they can't, yet it doesn’t stop the media including most TV stations, from
proclaiming their advice.
1) See also, no surge
in cancer due to DDT: Edmund Sweeney, EPA Hearing Examiner's recommendations
and findings concerning DDT hearings, April 25, 1972. J. Higginson, "DDT:
Epidemiological Evidence," lARC Scientific
Publications, 1985.
2) Robert V. Tauxe, "Food Safety and Irradiation: Protecting the
Public from Foodborne Infections," Conference Presentation, Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, June 2001. Since Tauxe
is assuming that 50 percent of processed meat would be irradiated, he also
assumes that this meat would be the source of 50 percent of foodborne E. coli
0157, Campylobacter, Salmonella, Listeria, and Taxoplasma
infections.
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