Commentary: Reading stories on health can be detrimental to one's health

Sandy Sand thinks people should light up, er, "lighten up," and enjoy life, even if it they have a couple of bad habits.

If you are a person who believes every health study you read even though you don’t know who paid for it or what ax they have to grind, don’t read the following.

But if you’re one who, healthful or not, takes them with a grain or three of salt, the following might be for you.

Studies are like “creative accounting.” The results can be anything the “studier” wants them to be.

So it is with a recent study that is making the news in blaring headlines across the 'net, on television and radio stations and in newspapers.

The University of Oslo studied people and their nasty habits for 20 years and said they found that a four “bad” habits combo of smoking, excess drinking, lack of exercise and unhealthful eating can age you by 12 years.

Of course, the study said you must practice all four to qualify for being shorted a dozen years; there were no reports of people who faithfully practiced one, two or three out of the four.

According to the study 314 people out of 5,000 studied had all four unhealthy behaviors. Among them, 91 -- or 29 percent -- died during the study. Among the 387 healthiest people with none of the four habits, only 32 --or 8 percent -- died.

While they listed some of the causes of death as being due to heart disease and cancer, both related to unhealthful life styles according to them, they egregiously did not mention or deliberately omitted to make their point. How many people were killed off by falling bricks or some other chance of fate, or how many were genetically predisposed to such diseases?

There’s only so much one can take from these studies, especially when viewed overall, because for one positive study -- let’s say on the benefits of drinking coffee -- there will be one of equal and opposite results.

Back in the day when the anti-smoking fanatics first got a chokehold on brain-washing people as to the evils of smoking, I was working in a department store that had a small lunchroom.

To pacify the non-smokers, they assigned one table to them.

Unabashedly, I was at the smokers table where all the action was and peppered with laughter, easy banter and jokes. This jovial atmosphere in itself is far better for one’s health, especially when dealing the public all day, than a day of frustration at not being able to grab a smoke.

The convivial atmosphere of the smokers table was in direct contrast to the morose, somber quietude of the non-smoking table where they sat in abject silence, not even uttering a polite, “please pass the salt.”

A couple of bad habits spice up life and it sure beats cowering over every scare tactic health headline, which is detrimental to one’s health.