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Angry About Slow Poisons
Aug. 23rd, 2014 10:10 pmThere are so many things that are bad for you long term but in the short term there is no noticeable effect. So, since you can't see an effect, if you're not just going to bury your head in the sand, then you have to figure out who to trust.
And this is (mostly) not one of those things where turning to religion helps. One exception: I once read that the iron in meat cancels out the good effects of the calcium in dairy and vice versa, so the Old Testament rule about not eating meat and milk together helps you with that one. There are probably some more, but probably not a lot.
Mostly I'm inclined to trust science. However, there are [at least] three big problems with trusting science:
1) Long-term effects take a long time to discover. Long-term science is expensive and rare.
2) Correlation is not causation but it is so damned tempting. For example, death by heart attack is hard to measure--you have to wait around and see how people die. But death by heart attack is correlated with high cholesterol, which is super easy to measure. So you have millions of studies about cholesterol, but what do they really tell us about heart attack death risks?
3) Scientists can no longer be trusted. There is pressure to publish, and people only want to publish "good" results, not boring results. (There is less pressure to publish "true" results.) So people will lie about their results. Plus, a lot of research money comes from biased parties. Plus, even if the science is good, science reporters are often unbelievably incompetent or just plain lying bastards.
And those three problems are making me angry. I am willing to make small and even medium changes in my behavior to better my health. But I don't want to change things I like for no reason at all. Or to change, be wrong, and have to change back (I'm talking about you, margarine, which it turns out people knew was bad for you when it was first invented, but I didn't get the memo).
Also, with the internet, it's so easy to find information. I should be able to find out anything I want! But if the information is all suspect, then it's just frustrating.
Here are just a few of the questions I am wondering about now.
* How bad is it to store your food in plastic really? What about "food-grade" plastic? How bad is it to microwave your food in plastic? What about "microwave-safe" plastic? I love bringing plastic containers to restaurants--they are lightweight, they are durable, and they nest. But I could switch to glass, which is inert.
* How bad is sugar for me really? Is it okay if I just keep my weight down and brush and floss well and am not (yet) diabetic? Or am I really just asking for trouble? (Diabetes runs in my family. When we were kids we theorized that it might be case that you only get a certain amount of sugar in your life, and if you eat it too quickly you turn diabetic earlier than if you just spread out your intake. However, it looks like some people--at least two that I know--have been able to turn back their diabetes by reducing their weight. And then they get to eat sugar again.) Does letting my blood sugar spike and plummet (even if I don't notice symptoms) wreak havoc with my body?
* How bad is jogging for you really? Does it depend on if you're doing it wrong? If so, am I doing it wrong? Or if you're built wrong (and am I built wrong?)? Do I really have to buy new shoes every five minutes (or whatever the ridiculous time frame du jour is)? If my feet and knees and hips aren't hurting, does that mean I'm okay? Is it okay if I don't do it too much, like training for marathons all the time? Or is all jogging so high impact that it contributes to a ticking bomb of bodily destruction? Or is that impact just what I need to protect me from the osteoporosis for which I have multiple risk factors?
* Okay, uncle, I should have been wearing sunscreen through my entire childhood--or wait, sunscreens in those days were probably poisonous themselves, so I should have been wearing hats and long sleeves. While swimming. My dad always made sure that wherever we moved, we lived near a pool, but I should have ignored that and stayed inside? The damage was irreversible. Like asbestos and fiberglass and maybe lead. Well, I'll just wear sunscreen now and watch for signs of skin cancer.
Yes, yes, first-world questions. And yes, I am very appreciative that I rarely have to worry about quick-acting poisons.
And this is (mostly) not one of those things where turning to religion helps. One exception: I once read that the iron in meat cancels out the good effects of the calcium in dairy and vice versa, so the Old Testament rule about not eating meat and milk together helps you with that one. There are probably some more, but probably not a lot.
Mostly I'm inclined to trust science. However, there are [at least] three big problems with trusting science:
1) Long-term effects take a long time to discover. Long-term science is expensive and rare.
2) Correlation is not causation but it is so damned tempting. For example, death by heart attack is hard to measure--you have to wait around and see how people die. But death by heart attack is correlated with high cholesterol, which is super easy to measure. So you have millions of studies about cholesterol, but what do they really tell us about heart attack death risks?
3) Scientists can no longer be trusted. There is pressure to publish, and people only want to publish "good" results, not boring results. (There is less pressure to publish "true" results.) So people will lie about their results. Plus, a lot of research money comes from biased parties. Plus, even if the science is good, science reporters are often unbelievably incompetent or just plain lying bastards.
And those three problems are making me angry. I am willing to make small and even medium changes in my behavior to better my health. But I don't want to change things I like for no reason at all. Or to change, be wrong, and have to change back (I'm talking about you, margarine, which it turns out people knew was bad for you when it was first invented, but I didn't get the memo).
Also, with the internet, it's so easy to find information. I should be able to find out anything I want! But if the information is all suspect, then it's just frustrating.
Here are just a few of the questions I am wondering about now.
* How bad is it to store your food in plastic really? What about "food-grade" plastic? How bad is it to microwave your food in plastic? What about "microwave-safe" plastic? I love bringing plastic containers to restaurants--they are lightweight, they are durable, and they nest. But I could switch to glass, which is inert.
* How bad is sugar for me really? Is it okay if I just keep my weight down and brush and floss well and am not (yet) diabetic? Or am I really just asking for trouble? (Diabetes runs in my family. When we were kids we theorized that it might be case that you only get a certain amount of sugar in your life, and if you eat it too quickly you turn diabetic earlier than if you just spread out your intake. However, it looks like some people--at least two that I know--have been able to turn back their diabetes by reducing their weight. And then they get to eat sugar again.) Does letting my blood sugar spike and plummet (even if I don't notice symptoms) wreak havoc with my body?
* How bad is jogging for you really? Does it depend on if you're doing it wrong? If so, am I doing it wrong? Or if you're built wrong (and am I built wrong?)? Do I really have to buy new shoes every five minutes (or whatever the ridiculous time frame du jour is)? If my feet and knees and hips aren't hurting, does that mean I'm okay? Is it okay if I don't do it too much, like training for marathons all the time? Or is all jogging so high impact that it contributes to a ticking bomb of bodily destruction? Or is that impact just what I need to protect me from the osteoporosis for which I have multiple risk factors?
* Okay, uncle, I should have been wearing sunscreen through my entire childhood--or wait, sunscreens in those days were probably poisonous themselves, so I should have been wearing hats and long sleeves. While swimming. My dad always made sure that wherever we moved, we lived near a pool, but I should have ignored that and stayed inside? The damage was irreversible. Like asbestos and fiberglass and maybe lead. Well, I'll just wear sunscreen now and watch for signs of skin cancer.
Yes, yes, first-world questions. And yes, I am very appreciative that I rarely have to worry about quick-acting poisons.