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Ron Jackson's Perspective
The Sunday Journal -
Think
Kankakee, Illinois
January 26, 2003
Studies hold a lot
of weight |
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Please have a
pen or pencil ready. There will be a test at the end of this column.
We haven’t reached the end the
January, yet I’ve already heard of three new heath studies. Are we
suddenly smarter this year, or is the proliferation of heath news
due to the delayed attack on Iraq?
The first study
to catch my attention was about the shortened life expectancy of
middle-aged fat people. The report by Dutch researchers
stated, “People who are overweight at 40 are likely to die at least
three years sooner than those who are slim.” The study also
said being a fat middle-ager was as bad as smoking. If you
were fat, middle-age and smoked, you were doomed. Ok, the
report didn’t say doomed. This study was conducted from
1948-1990.
I have never smoked. I am well into my 40’s.
I didn’t think I was fat, but according to some height-weight
standards, I am. According to this study, I risk losing three
years of natural life. If I started smoking, I could take off
a couple more years.
The second study I read was about how being obese at
age 20 could knock off 20 years from your life. It was
released a day after the 40 and fat study. The Journal of the
American Medical Association study said that obese males in their
20’s could lose 13-20 years of life depending upon their race.
I’m not twenty anymore, so this study was a quick read, especially
after it delved into body-mass indexing and other really intelligent
stuff.
The third study was done by Israeli researchers and
took just one month to reach a conclusion. Their research
showed that “drinking a beer a day produced changes in blood
chemistry associated with a reduced risk of heart attack.” The
beer used in this test was a standard pale lager, about 5 percent
alcohol by volume. Your cheap beers may require more testing
or just more drinking to have a similar effect. This study may
be new, but I remember what Momma used to say about drunks.
“He may be a drunk, but he sure has a good heart.” So much for
that resolution to stop drinking, huh? If you are really
interested, the Israeli findings will be published later this month
in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
There you have it. We have some choices to make.
We can continue being fat, keep smoking, and die much younger with a
good heart while having a beer a day, or we could get slim and trim,
stop smoking, and enjoy that beer a day for a few more years.
To those of my age group, should we really put much
stock in these studies? How many times have we been told
coffee was good for us, then it was bad for us, then it was good for
us again? Is three more years of living worth the lifestyle
change? If we keep living as we do now, many of us won’t make
it to collect social security. Some of us will make necessary
lifestyle changes and live to collect social security at the risk of
looking like Mick Jaggar or Whitney Houston.
Ok, here’s the quiz. No cheating allowed.
Answer yes or no.
Are you really as sick as I am of health studies?
Next thing you know, there will be a study saying it’s
OK to give Prozac to kids.
This one’s for all of you. |
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