71–80 of 173 posts
STDs cause a lot of grief and arguably as much or more damage than diet. AIDS speaks for itself; herpes is implicated in Alzheimer's, heart disease and other ailments and is just a general curse without the modern antivirals (although many persons are naturally immune); gonorrhea and syphilis continue to mutate to new drug-resistant forms.
> not smoking It's a pet peeve of mine, but I really wish smoking weren't presented as a binary choice in medicine and science. I know a lot of people who smoke socially but only socially. They probably have an average of somewhere between half to maybe five or six cigarettes a week -- less than one a day, universally. (For comparison, it's believed that addiction only starts to kick it at around 5 cigarettes per day…
How can I have a top40% healthy diet score? w
https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-body/
That page has some dietary recommendations:
- Eat more fibre (at least 30g a day)
- Cut down on saturated fat
- Get your 5 A Day (servings of fruit and vegetables)
- Cut down on salt (no more than 6 grams a day)
- Eat fish (at least twice a week)
Does < 10 cigarettes a month count as smoking?
How big are the cigarettes, how deep do you inhale, how strong are the cigarettes you smoke, type of filter... So many factors. But no simple X is safe and X+n is bad formular to appease any concerns. Everybody is different and all these Recommended Daily limits are all based on an average that none of us fully fit into. I will say though that anything in moderation is the only rule of thumb that still carries, after…
The fact that it was health care professionals studied leads to the possible confounding factor that people who had unhealthy lifestyles were very aware of their choice to be unhealthy, meaning a possible placebo effect
> not smoking It's a pet peeve of mine, but I really wish smoking weren't presented as a binary choice in medicine and science. I know a lot of people who smoke socially but only socially. They probably have an average of somewhere between half to maybe five or six cigarettes a week -- less than one a day, universally. (For comparison, it's believed that addiction only starts to kick it at around 5 cigarettes per day…
> not smoking It's a pet peeve of mine, but I really wish smoking weren't presented as a binary choice in medicine and science. I know a lot of people who smoke socially but only socially. They probably have an average of somewhere between half to maybe five or six cigarettes a week -- less than one a day, universally. (For comparison, it's believed that addiction only starts to kick it at around 5 cigarettes per day…
So for example, I wrote that I was a smoker once on an insurance application (at the time as a 2-3 per day, 1 pack per week social smoker) and my insurance went up almost $100 per month. But the risk of not being truthful would be possible denied coverage down the road if I ever did develop respiratory problems. So insurance effectively encourages lying as a financial incentive (since the vast majority of people don't develop problems social smoking) as well as a racket (a loophole that corporations can use to deny coverage).
But there's no way to talk about something like this in polite society, because people effectively lose their minds. For example, I hate that my parents smoke, and often wish that tobacco never existed. Yet I treasure my memories of social smoking at parties, and consider counterculture stuff like that to be part of my ethos.
IMHO the only solution is to be vigilant in denying corporate control over our liberty and justice. Which is increasingly difficult in these times. I'm hopeful that the 2020s will unwind some of the oppression that's happened since 2001 though.
Surprising: one of the healthy habits mentioned is drinking alcohol only in moderation (defined in this study as just under 2 units for women and 4 units for men daily) . If I drank any alcohol on a daily basis, I would be scared that it would go downhill from there. Habits are hard to change, so better do not pick up bad ones at all. I'm convinced that just avoiding to do stupid things is half the battle already.
That one doesn't make any sense to me. Alcohol is basically poison. Perhaps small amounts of it won't do any harm to you, but how could it possibly have a positive effect on your health?
Or, to put a cynical spin on it: noone becomes an abstinent by choice, usually people stop drinking once their doctor tells them they should, so obviously they will have worse overall health than moderate drinkers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> because people actually do them and stick to them Do you have data to back this up? I would have thought the exact opposite. That HIIT and IM are techniques that people try after having seen a Ted talk or something like that and don't make a life discipline out of them. I also think plenty of people have some "common sense discipline" such as cycling/walking to work, and not eating junk food and sodas, and trying t…
> Do you have data to back this up? Yes e.g.: Fasting: https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/90/5/1138/4598070 Intermittent exercise: https://www.nature.com/articles/0800533 > I also think plenty of people have some "common sense discipline" such as cycling/walking to work, and not eating junk food and sodas, and trying to eat fruits and vegetables. I feel this is very sustainable with a high ratio benefit/cost. I ag…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This seems to be a cultural UK/US difference which I've noticed moving to the US. In the UK a glass of wine with food every night would be seen as part of a healthy mediterranean diet and health advice on alcohol was refocussed to discourage binge drinking, emphasizing daily rather than weekly consumption limits. In the US daily drinking seems to be seen as bad (perhaps a legacy of prohibition?) while binge drinking…
> In the UK a glass of wine with food every night would be seen as part of a healthy mediterranean diet and health advice on alcohol was refocussed to discourage binge drinking, I don't understand what you mean. Public Health advice on alcohol in the UK has been pretty consistent for many years. There are 3 changes: the limits for men went from 21 units a week to 14 units a week; the advice to pregnant women to avoid…