Lifestyle that gets you dead by age 50 or non-existent lifestyle?

I've always been fascinated by what studies show about various foods, lifestyles etc and how it'll affect our future (and present) health and life-expectancy. For example:

Don't eat sugar substitutes - they cause cancer.

Don't eat sugar - you'll die of diabetes

Don't eat sodium - you'll die of heart failure

Don't sit out in the sun - you'll die of cancer

Don't take the contraceptive pill - you'll die of breast cancer

Don't go out to a club - the loud noise will get you permanently deaf

Don't stress too much - you'll die of heart failure

Don't take vitamin supplements - they cause more harm than good

Don't use Teflon pans - they'll give you cancer

Don't drink out of plastic bottles - they'll give you cancer

Don't eat meat - you'll get heart disease

Don't go vegan - you'll die of nutritional problems

Don't drink alcohol - you'll get liver disease

Drink alcohol - you'll get heart failure

I could go on.

It seems as if the 'everything in moderation' is completely ignored by all these studies. I know I shouldn't really believe everything I read in the news or hear from other people, but it gets me thinking. They kind of remind me of a scene in Mean Girls where the sex-ed coach says 'Don't have sex, you'll get pregnant, and DIE'. Should I really just eat home grown salad leaves grown in my own soil in my own backgarden to avoid genetically modified foods or pest repellants (because they're *gasp* linked to some form of cancerous disease) and completely sit locked up in my room because the sun will kill me?

Most (but not all!) of these links have some kind of reasoning behind them, but is it true that by just avoiding all these you'll decrease your risk of getting cancer/some other disease by a lot? Or is it just some conspiracy theory by various companies to get you to buy sunscreen (which btw does not protect against melanoma, just other types of skin cancer) or to buy so called 'organic' food (because who knows if they are actually organic?). And do you believe that 'oh I can have one diet coke because one drink of aspartame infused soda won't do me anyharm' and then *bam* twenty years later you hear the most feared words coming from any doctor's mouth 'I'm afraid I have bad news...'.

I love keeping myself healthy and I do try to avoid things that most probably will kill me. But then I think, why am I doing this? Will it save me 10, 20 years? I could probably die at 70 living a somewhat crappy lifestyle, but having had enjoyed myself, or live until 115 with regrets that I didn't buy or eat something that I would have enjoyed, just to make me sit in the same chair for 50 years after retirement? There are reports of the oldest people in the world who have smoked for 80 years and yet, no cancer.

What are your thoughts on various things like the above? Do you avoid certain things but not others, ultimately not living a healthier lifestyle overall, or do you just ignore everything you hear or read about? It seems as if everything nowadays will get you killed prematurely, so what do you do?

im right there with ya...   im just trying to enjoy life with all those things in moderation...   thats all you can do.

Wow, when you list it all like that, it makes you feel like you cannot do anything.  You are 100% correct, research does not seem take into account 'moderation'. 

In Australia, because of 30 years of "Slip, Slop, Slap" (slip on sunglasses, slop on sun screen and slap on a hat) and made to fear the sun, and skin cancer, many Australians now have a huge Vit D deficiency.  Sure, the effects of Vit D deficiency are far less problematic than the high risk of skin cancer, but we need do need some sun exposure.  Funny enough, low Vit D has been linked to tumor formation, dammed if you do, and dammed if you don't. 

As for me personally, I try to do what is healthy, but there is no point in living a healthy life, if you are miserable because you restrict everything.  Its as you said, moderation is the key.

And you left out "Get some sun, because it reduces your chances of depression and every other type of cancer besides skin cancer".  I just ignore anything that looks like sensationalism designed to sell papers, and stick with the ones that have been tried and true for 50 or 100 years.  Eat some vegetables, get some exercise, but don't try to live like a monk.

I take it all with a grain of salt, and whenever I need a sanity check, I ask myself what a primate 100,000 years ago would do.  Would he eat Nutrasweet?  Probably not.  Would he eat sugar?  Sure, if he could get it, but he couldn't get it very often.  Ditto for the meat and the grains.  Lots of leafy greens and fruit, a little bit of meat and grains, and lay around in the shade and relax when you can, but get some sun, and don't forget the running from predators on a regular basis.  :) 

 

Now, in practice, your world isn't optimized for living like a primate, and we'd all starve to death if we did, but it's at least a quick guideline when you're asking yourself things like "Do I *actually* believe that sugar and meat is bad for me?"

i agree with the above..im trying to live a life of all things in moderation..  i dont want to live to 100 anyway...and its true..i could be so strict and healthy and do nothing to give me any pleasure and then die next week.  nope..dont want that.. gotta live in the now, be happy while i can..while still trying to be healthy.  i think we can all manage that..  good topic though!

I think the scientific research community needs to take some responsibility, along with the media.  I'm sure the premature announcements of research results are released to the press in the hope of obtaining grant money to continue.

There are some things I have learned to look for in these news reports.

How many people took part in the study?
How long did the study last?
Who paid for the study?

I'm not going to believe a test on 15 people showing that half of them lost weight on the Atkins diet.  The sample is too small to be significant. and Atkins paid for it.

I'm going to believe the American Heart Association study that lasted 25 years and tracked over 50,000 doctors for a link between high blood cholesterol and heart attacks.  However, even this study is suspect because all the subjects were male.  Turns out that women have different results.  Paid for by non profit AMA.

The study that showed that oat bran helps reduce blood cholesterol, although valid, was paid for by the Quaker Oats Co.  Hmmmm.  Actually, it turns out the soluable fiber is the answer and that's available from many sources, not just oat bran.

We have to be careful of what we accept.

Original Post by kamileon:

 Lots of leafy greens and fruit, a little bit of meat and grains, and lay around in the shade and relax when you can, but get some sun, and don't forget the running from predators on a regular basis. :)

 

Haha, I love your point about the predators.

I can see most people do agree with moderation, and it's a perfectly good thing to do! I still question it though, will moderation save me or kill me?

Just to get people thinking...

Yeah, I honestly would rather enjoy my life now & not worry about things that might-kinda-sorta-maybe-possibly be linked to some certain types of cancer that haven't been fully discovered yet. you catch my drift.

I'd rather die at 70 than live to be like 120, tbh.

i personally say to go and live how you want to.

whether it be avoiding all possible health risks or diving right into the risk of premature death.

whatever makes you happy, go for it. you could live fast and die young or have a long, boring life. health is not more important than living a satisfactory life or vice versa; it all depends on what the individual feels satisfies them. life is about self-satisfaction, quite frankly.

Life is life. People spent theirs pondering : "what if".. I say f_ck it. We all die sometime.. do what makes you happy.


F_ck it.

I've actually put a list together like you did when I was in college for a project.  I listed over 100 points that "scieintific studies" were saying were going to kill or disable us.  Many of them went back on what they said.  It's just not safe either way apparently :)

It's kinda like those commercials for prescription drugs:  Yes you can control your eating habits or high blood pressure, but you may lose your sight, lose a liver, or  Well, those don't sound like great odds to me anyway.  Just live! :)

 We're all going to die of something, might as well be something we enjoy :)

Well, there is my two cents... Thanks :)

I think moderation may save you.  Eventually, everything will kill you.  But in the meantime, I believe moderation will enable you to live a little longer and still be able to enjoy living a little longer

Yeah, I'm kinda for both.  Moderation is definitely a good thing. Maybe not because if you don't you'll die.  But think about it we can't live 24/7 in a state of high activity and no one wants to "have a boring life" either.  I think food, drink and fun all fall in this same category.  I mean balance in everything just plain makes you feel better.  If I am so restrictive with my diet that I can't have a desert once in a while then can I really call that living!  It just doesn't make sense to me.  But the idea of eating what is natural is appealing and feels healthy.  Personally, there is nothing so satisfying as fresh fruit that is in season.  Sweet juicy pineapple - or ripe just picked strawberries.  That can make me happy.  How wants to live on a diet of artificial sweetener or yo-yo's!  It's just not appealing.  The same thing with just our daily lives.  We need to get out there and do things that make us feel alive.  Enjoy ourselves at least once in awhile.  But I wouldn't want to go skydiving everyday, ya know what I mean.  Those boring days help us to enjoy more the days we do something more invigorating! That's my philosophy anyway!  A little bit of everything and just trying to enjoy it all! 

I'm convinced that people like to panic, seriously. Especially things that say you eat this and you'll get cancer. Most of those studies are legit, but when you read about them in the paper, they leave out the part where they fed the mice something on the order of 100 g/kg of the stuff a day. For a person, that comes out to be pounds of whatever a day. Seriously, I'm pretty sure that if I start eating a pound of just about any single thing, I wouldn't be terribely healthy.

I mean, those studies have their purpose, and a lot the the science is legit, but gets blown out of proportion somewhere along the way.