I was reading an article on Medscape.com entitled “No Safe Limit: Even One Drink a Day Increases Risks.” This article focuses on research being done that establishes alcohol consumption may substantially increase the risk of diseases like cancer, coronary artery disease, tuberculosis and obviously road injuries. The article states, “Alcohol has long been recognized as a leading risk factor for disease burden and has been linked to 60 acute and chronic diseasthe radom beeres via all multitude of mechanisms, both through cumulative consumption and acute intoxication.” The article further states, “Studies have suggested that low-level alcohol consumption may [protect] against Ischemic heart disease and diabetes, among other conditions. However, such findings have been challenged by recent analyses.”
As I thought about the implications of the findings in this article, there was no question that alcohol consumption leads to terrible tragedies on our roadways daily. However, it was the other findings that were most intriguing as they brought to mind all of the continuing research advice we as laypeople get from the research component of our medical community about our eating habits and our lifestyles. To this day, I remain confused as to whether eating whole eggs or food prepared with whole eggs including the yolk are unhealthy or are now on the continuum of “not so bad for us”. I feel the same about beef and the implication of the potential adverse health effects of interspersing meat in your diet. I wonder about my vitamin regimen – Is it helping me stay healthy or am I just enriching the pharmaceutical companies who manufacture the vitamins and minerals that I take. I would hate to think that I’m merely passing all of this cash through my kidneys.
The truth is, during my lifetime,the advice given to us as healthcare consumers about what we should eat, what we should drink, how much exercise we should receive, how much sleep we need and generally what we should expect at each stage of our life is a set
Are all the foods bad?
of fluid criteria. We can find opinions and research on all sides of the various eating and lifestyle experiences. We can also do our own research and find that advice of 25 years ago which was subsequently determined to be misdirected, is now, once again, in vogue as reasonable behavior.
When it comes to the vitamins, I still intend to take mine every morning whether it serves as a psychological palliative or it really helps. It feels much the same as my perception of chicken soup; which, for many decades, has been a remedy for all sorts of medical issues. It may help or it may not help, but it won’t hurt you.
