Why being 'overweight' means you live longer: The way scientists twist the facts

[Geee]

UK Independent:

I have been studying medical research for many years, and the single most outstanding thing I have learned is that many medical "facts" are simply not true. Let's take as an example the health risks of drinking alcohol. If you are a man, it has virtually become gospel that drinking more than 21 units of alcohol a week is damaging to your health. But where did the evidence to support this well-known "fact" come from?

 

The answer may surprise you. According to Richard Smith, a former editor of the British Medical Journal, the level for safe drinking was "plucked out of the air". He was on a Royal College of Physicians team that helped produce the guidelines in 1987. He told The Times newspaper that the committee's epidemiologist had conceded that there was no data about safe limits available and that "it's impossible to say what's safe and what isn't". Smith said the drinking limits were "not based on any firm evidence at all", but were an "intelligent guess".

 

In time, the intelligent guess becomes an undisputed fact. On much the same lines, we have the inarguable "fact" that being overweight is bad for your health. I should say that, by definition, being "overweight" must be bad for your health – or we wouldn't call it overweight. But we do not define overweight as being the weight above which you are damaging your health; it has an exact definition.

[SrWoodchuck]

Sweet @Geee

 

Yea! I think.........?

[Geee]

Sweet @Geee

 

Yea! I think.........?

Works for me

[RandyM]

"Kool-Aid" comes in all flavors, whether it's medicine, climatology, politics, ad nauseum.

[SrWoodchuck]

"Kool-Aid" comes in all flavors, whether it's medicine, climatology, politics, ad nauseum.

 

I'll drink to that....as long as there's enough vodka in the kool-aid.

 

I used to be a Kool-Aid Wino...( kool-aid all the time....but, with only 1/3 the sugar )

[Geee]

More scientists doubt salt is as bad for you as the government says

 

For years, the federal government has advised Americans that they are eating too much salt, and that this excess contributes yearly to the deaths of tens of thousands of people.

 

But unknown to many shoppers urged to buy foods that are “low sodium” and “low salt,” this longstanding warning has come under assault by scientists who say that typical American salt consumption is without risk.

 

Moreover, according to studies published in recent years by pillars of the medical community, the low levels of salt recommended by the government might actually be dangerous.

 

“There is no longer any valid basis for the current salt guidelines,” said Andrew Mente, a professor at McMaster University in Ontario and one of the researchers involved in a major study published last year by the New England Journal of Medicine. “So why are we still scaring people about salt?”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/04/06/more-scientists-doubt-salt-is-as-bad-for-you-as-the-government-says/

[Geee]

The U.S. government is poised to withdraw longstanding warnings about cholesterol

 

The nation’s top nutrition advisory panel has decided to drop its caution about eating cholesterol-laden food, a move that could undo almost 40 years of government warnings about its consumption.

 

The group’s finding that cholesterol in the diet need no longer be considered a “nutrient of concern” stands in contrast to the committee’s findings five years ago, the last time it convened. During those proceedings, as in previous years, the panel deemed the issue of excess cholesterol in the American diet a public health concern.

 

The finding follows an evolution of thinking among many nutritionists who now believe that, for healthy adults, eating foods high in cholesterol may not significantly affect the level of cholesterol in the blood or increase the risk of heart disease.

 

The greater danger in this regard, these experts believe, lies not in products such as eggs, shrimp or lobster, which are high in cholesterol, but in too many servings of foods heavy with saturated fats, such as fatty meats, whole milk, and butter.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/02/10/feds-poised-to-withdraw-longstanding-warnings-about-dietary-cholesterol/