Putting Yourself in Someone Else’s Shoes

by admin on August 15, 2011

I work at a hospital where the staff who clean the patient’s rooms are encouraged, every once in a while, to lie down on the bed – before it’s made of course – and look around them. The idea is to see the room from the patient’s perspective. After all, the patient may be stuck in bed for several days or even longer and things that seem fine to someone standing up can take on a very different complexion to someone lying down. By lying down the employee might see something that might be irritating or problematic and so change it before the next patient moves in.

Room with no view

It’s a simple idea but a tremendously important one. We can learn a lot by looking at a situation from a different perspective.

So, when I came across this blog post the other day I was fascinated. It’s by a physician who blogs regularly about patient rights but didn’t really understand exactly what a patient goes through, until he became one himself.

It’s a painful way to learn a valuable lesson.

 

 

 

Doctor D, MD August 12, 2011

Doctor D has been blogging about the  doctor-patient relationship for a while now. It’s sort of the thing I’m known for. I’ve usually been on the doctor side of this equation. Most of my blogging, however, is to help patients figure out the weird world of medicine.

Doctor D recently found himself on the patient side of a nasty injury.

Even as Doctor D looked down and realized his leg wasn’t supposed to be that shape he said to himself, “Self, take mental notes! The readers of Doctor D’s Clinic of Doctor-Patient Relational Awesomeness will want to know about this.”

Here is what Doctor D discovered when he became Patient D:

1. Doctor D Is mostly right. Any reader of this knows that Dr. D’s insight is typically brilliant and totally useful. I found myself actually looking up posts I had written for the solid and useful advice.

But even D has a lot to learn, so from here on I shall delve into the dark secrets I could only discover when crossing the line to the patient side.

2. Being the patient Is the hardest job In medicine. We doctors think we have difficult work. We have to slave our asses off for years in school. We are expected to be perfect and heroic while working with huge uncertainty. We try to protect your health, comfort, and life, while you patients just lay back and get taken care of.

Lying here isn’t as relaxing as overworked docs think it is.

Just a few days as a hospital patient cleared my mind of any misconceptions. Abject helplessness combined with severe pain trumps everything. And helplessness is far worse than pain. Dr. D had never done anything as a doctor that caused more stress than allowing myself to be put to sleep for a major operation with a surgeon I had only spoken to for 30 seconds.

3. There is much more to pain than a number. Doctor D has written a lot on pain scoring, so I attempted to rate my own pain as a matter of curiosity. I have a good imagination for what 10 out of 10 pain would feel like, so I gave the feeling of multiple shattered bones crunching whenever my leg moved a 7, which made it the most intense pain I’ve ever felt, but I could totally handle the excruciating acute pain.

The real surprise was realizing that duration of pain was far worse than intensity. I had a throbbing pain during my recovery that I could rate as a 4 if I’m generous, but it lasted for weeks and nearly drove me insane. Low-intensity pain that won’t leave can make a person much more miserable than 10 out of 10.

4. Narcotics suck. I’ve seen a lot of nice people get addicted to opiate pain medicines. So Doctor D was the dude in the ER with a bone sticking out of his leg begging not to be given morphine. When they finally convinced me to take the narcotics I was please to discover I didn’t get any high. But what I did discover is that they made me miserable in other ways. I was groggy, nauseated, itchy, constipated, and mushy-brained whenever I had to use them.

Their efficacy varies drastically from person to person. I can say with certainty that a 400 mg Ibuprofen was significantly better for pain for me than a 10 mg Percocet, but since my Ortho wouldn’t let me use ibuprofen I was stuck with narcotics. So I then had to deal with the suspicious look when I told the doc I needed more because I had run out.

I am so happy to be off those things. As a physician, it was a bit eye opening to experience how inconsistent and imperfect our best pain medicines are. Managing the pain of a fellow human being is about as frustrating a situation as an MD can experience. I doubt my prescribing patterns will change much, but I do have a deeper appreciation for how hard it is to correctly wield the double-edged sword of pain medicines.

5. Being disabled can really crush an ego. Regular visitors to The Clinic of Doctor-Patient Relational Awesomeness are likely aware that Doctor D has a very healthy self-esteem. 3 weeks of lying on my back absolutely helpless and unable to do anything had me at the lowest place I’ve every been. One night I—a generally tough dude—cried myself to sleep. I’m up and moving better now, but I will likely have a limp the rest of my life. My whole life I’ve been able to do everything physical I wanted to do. Now I’m one of the broken people. It’s going to take some getting used to.

I know as physician I often see people with broken and damaged bodies. It kind of annoyed me when people whined about it. “Look, we can’t fix everything, so be a grown up, get over yourself, and quit complaining!” It’s easy to feel this way when you aren’t the one with the disability. I’ve given myself that same pep talk a lot in the last two months—It doesn’t work as well when I’m the one with the gimp leg. A lot of my patients have far worse problems than my leg ever was. I’m manning up to fact that my leg’s gonna hurt for decades, but I think I’ll be much more patient towards patients with severe disabilities in the future.

You can’t say you wouldn’t complain about it if you’ve never been there—it’s a good thing for docs to keep in mind.

6. There isn’t a “sort of person” these things happen to. Okay, I have to admit something a bit embarrassing here: We doctors sometimes think of our patients as a completely alien form of human life. It isn’t intentional. We wouldn’t even admit it out loud. It’s a weird psychological quirk that happens like a reflex.

Doctor’s see so much suffering and misery on a daily basis, and we just can’t spend all our time worrying if it will happen to us too. So we develop this mental trick: “These things won’t happen to me, because I’m not that sort of person.” What sort of person? Well, the sort of person who ends up the patient with a painful or horrible condition, of course!

Unfortunately, psychological defense mechanisms are useless when the cold, harsh laws of physics apply pressure to human bones. This shit happens to everybody—even doctors. No one is the sort of person that has a debilitating injury, until it happens.

7. Some doctors just can’t be helped. Doctor D has spent a lot of time educating you on how to deal with difficult doctors. One of the worse maladies plaguing the medical field is piss-poor communication, and Dr. D’s orthopedist has about the communication skills of a mentally-retarded clam.

There’s a lot that patients can do to improve their communication with difficult doctors. I had a lot of questions, and I found myself going and reading my own posts for advice on how to get answers out of a doc with weak bedside manner.

In the end I just gave up. This dude just couldn’t communicate like a normal human being with a patient (even a patient who had an MD). I hear he’s an excellent surgeon and the fact that my leg got put back together is proof of this, but his ability to converse was just dismal.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t consider speaking with you to be part of my job description.”

When faced with a doctor who simply will not or cannot communicate a patient has two options: Leave or trust blindly.

Dr. D had a FUBAR leg, there was only one orthopedist available at 1am, and the ER doc said this dude was a good surgeon. So I trusted him even though he seemed mentally incapable of explaining the operation he was going to do. The gamble paid off and the leg is improving, but generally I would have to advise that you hit the road when paired with doctors incapable of communicating—especially if your doctor will need to manage your problem longer than a 2 hour surgery.

“Doctor D” is a physician who blogs at Ask An MD.

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A Bitter Pill To Swallow Could Make You Sick

by admin on August 12, 2011

Being a bitter person won’t make you a better person. In fact, new research shows it might make you a sicker person.

The study was done by researchers at Concordia University and one of them, Carsten Wrosch, concluded that “persistent bitterness may result in global feelings of anger and hostility that, when strong enough, could affect a person’s physical health. ”

Toxic emotions

Bitter is bad

Wrosch and his colleagues say that some emotions – such as regret – are directed inward and are about blaming yourself for errors you made. In contrast bitterness is directed outward, and is about blaming others. It may be that you blame someone because you didn’t get the job you wanted, or the promotion  you thought you deserved, or even just the respect you feel you merit at home.

Regardless of the cause that failure can prove toxic and if you hold on to it for a long time then it can slowly poison you in unexpected ways, not just mentally by leaving you fixated on what happened or even consumed by thoughts of revenge, but also physically such as by suppressing your immune function.

Avoid the pitfalls

The good news is that Wrosch and his chums say bitterness can be avoided.  People can start by trying to find other ways to achieve their original goals.

If that fails people can revise their goals and find something else to aim for or just gain a more realistic sense of what they can achieve, if they didn’t get the promotion they wanted maybe it’s time to look for a new job. If the marriage they are in is beyond saving then maybe it’s time to accept that and try to discover new love and passion.

And maybe the most powerful weapon that people can deploy in helping them move past these feelings of anger and resentment and bitterness is the simplest one. Forgiveness.

 

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Do You Really Need Your Tonsils?

by admin on August 8, 2011

I still have pretty much everything that I came into the world with. My hair – though not as much as before; my teeth – though not as many as before; as well as my appendix and my tonsils. I suspect that for someone of my generation that’s rather unusual. And certainly for someone growing up with English dentistry the fact that I have teeth may be considered something of a minor miracle.

When I was growing up it used to be fairly routine to remove kids tonsils. The first hint of infection and out they came. And it wasn’t an easy operation either – at least for the kid. It meant a lot of pain and days without being able to eat solid food.

Now you know what they look like

On the bright side it did mean kids got to get lots of ice cream as the cold, delicious treat was one of the few things they could eat.

More recently doctors have stopped removing the tonsils, except in special circumstances, so it was interesting to read an opinion piece on the BBC’s website from a surgeon arguing that we have swung too far in the opposite direction in the past few years. From doing too many tonsillectomies we are now doing too few.

You might argue that of course he would say that, the fewer tonsillectomies he does the less money he earns. But he’s part of the National Health Service in England (where the government picks up the bill – which may be one reason why there are fewer, the government doesn’t want to pay for them) so his income is determined by the number of surgeries he does.

Less is more

Rather this surgeon argues that the change in attitudes that has meant fewer tonsillectomies has meant that “we are seeing increasing rates of diseases and conditions that tonsillectomies can prevent or cure, like infections, and even cancer, of the tonsils.”

Is he being unnecessarily alarmist? After all there’s an old saying that if you are a hammer every problem looks like a nail – and if you are a surgeon every problem may seem as if it can be cured by removing it.

A hangover – and no, not that kind

Some people argue that we don’t really need our tonsils, that they are an evolutionary hangover, something we needed as we evolved to help protect us against infection and disease, but that today they are not essential.

Frankly, I’m never impressed by arguments that say various bits of us are no longer needed. I’m inclined to hang on to everything I have for as long as I have – provided it’s healthy of course.

To be honest, I’ve become rather attached to them.

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20 years and 20 pounds later

by admin on August 5, 2011

Remember that old song “The Way We Were” – and I apologize in advance if this is now going to embed the tune in your brain for the rest of the day – where the lyrics talk about how in the past “the grass was greener, the smiles were brighter.” Well, you can add another item to that list. In the past people were thinner. A lot thinner.

That struck me the other day when Shirley was showing me some old stories that she produced many years ago. One was from 1989 (she was 12 at the time) shortly after the Loma Prieta earthquake hit San Francisco and it was a look at how many  people responded in heroic fashion after the quake. It was quite inspiring.

Feast for the eyes!

It was also quite eye opening. Looking at the tape, and the various shots taken in the immediate aftermath of the quake, one thing struck me. How thin everyone was. Not just those on camera, the reporters and anchors – they’re universally slim – but everyone. Almost without exception people were slim. Even those with a little extra girth were nothing compared to what you would find on the streets of most American cities, including San Francisco, today.

You can see the same thing in any movie or TV show from the 1970′s and 1980′s. Everyone was thin, really thin – not to mention that they had embarrassing hair cuts and really what were they thinking with those shoulder pads and jacket sleeves rolled up! – at least compared to people today.

Living high on the hog

It got me wondering, what on earth happened? Did each individual in the Bay Area suddenly decide that having survived a major earthquake they were now going to enjoy every minute of life as if it were their last and go on an eating/drinking binge? That’s one possibility I suppose.

Or maybe there is something else going on here. Maybe our lifestyles have changed in subtle but significant ways since then. Perhaps the sheer availability and cheapness of so many fast foods and heavily processed foods have simply caught up with us.  Years of eating junk food and working at jobs that require us to sit down all day, and that are further and further away from home so we have to spend hours in the car or the bus or the train just to get there – perhaps these have steadily padded out our waist lines till more than 60 percent of Americans are now overweight – millions of them morbidly so.

Looking at the video was a reminder of our past. Looking out the window I can see our future. And it doesn’t look pretty.

 

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It Hurts When I Do This!

by admin on August 1, 2011

A man goes to see his doctor and says ‘Doc, it hurts when I do this” and the doctor says “Then don’t do that” Turns out that advice is more than just the punchline for a very old joke, it’s also based on sound scientific research. At least now it is.

The researchers say that how you hold yourself, your posture, can have a big influence on your sensitivity to pain.They say the more dominant a pose you adopt, the less sensitive to pain you are; and the reverse is true, the more submissive a pose you adopt the more likely you are to experience increased sensitivity to pain.

Posing the question

Scott Wiltermuth and Vanessa Bohns published their wonderfully titled study, It Hurts When I Do This (or You Do That), in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. They found that by having people adopt a more dominant pose the individuals felt more powerful, more in control of circumstances, and better able to handle stress or distress. They also found that those who were assigned to adopt the most dominant poses were better able to handle pain than people asked to adopt a more neutral or submissive pose.

Powerful poses

Sneaky science

Now, being a researcher means being kind of sneaky. They told the participants in the study that they were taking part in research into the health benefits of exercise at work and got them to get into a variety of yoga poses – some were powerful, dynamic poses, others were much more submissive with everything curled inwards. But how did they measure their sense of pain? Simple, they put a blood pressure cuff on their arm and kept pumping it up way beyond a normal level and told the study participants to tell them when to stop, when it hurt.

Those who were given the powerful yoga poses had a higher threshold of pain than those given the submissive poses. Cool eh!

Fake it

What’s really interesting is that the researchers say that we can use this kind of information in every day life. For instance, if you are in pain your natural reaction may be to be very nurturing and protective of yourself, to curl up into the proverbial ball to protect yourself. Wiltermuth and Bohns say that may have precisely the opposite effect. By making yourself adopt such a submissive pose you may be increasing your sensitivity to pain, because you are essentially saying you have no control over what’s happening to you or how you react to it.

Wiltermuth and Bohns say instead of curling up you should sit or stand up straight, and push your chest out. This can create a sense of power and a sense of control over what’s happening, or at least reduce your sense that things are out of control.

So, turns out your mother was right after all – isn’t she always – posture does matter. Not just in how others view you. But also in how you view yourself.

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Having Sex With the Kardashians

by admin on July 27, 2011

I read something recently about ways to get more people to visit your website and read your blog. Most of them had nothing to do with improving the quality of your writing, making the content snappier and punchier, more thoughtful or even funnier. Most were merely about the simple mechanics and tricks you can use to lure people to your website.

Probably not the Kardashians

Like putting headlines such as the one on this blog. That gets enough people to click on the link to your site so that the numbers for your blog go way up.

False advertising

But then you have to wonder. The headline might lure people to the site but  once they realized they’d been tricked did they stick around long enough to read what was there?

It reminded me of a story about an evangelist preacher’s efforts to reach out to people in New York’s Times Square, many years ago when the place was a cesspool of drug dealers, strip joints and sex shows (gosh, I wrote that as it that was a bad thing!). The preacher rented a store front and painted the door with gaudy colors and put up a big neon sign that said “Completely Naked” and an arrow pointing to a small window. When people looked through the window they saw themselves, in a mirror, and a sign above it that said “You stand before God.”

I thought, “Wow, how clever and creative.” But then I thought, “And how many people’s minds did that change?”

Honesty is the best policy – usually

It’s certainly a fun gimmick, but like all gimmicks if you lead people to your site under false pretenses the likelihood is great that, when they discover the hoax, they’ll not only leave in a hurry, they’ll also leave in a huff. Maybe you’ll get a few to stick around and think about the things that you care about, but in most cases they’ll just head off to another site that really talks either about sex or the Kardashians or both.

So, if you have read this far after being lured here by that misleading headline I apologize. Thanks for sticking with this. Feel free to head off to TMZ or some other celebrity gossip site that really does deliver the goods you thought you were going to get. And I promise I’ll never do this again. Next time I’ll use a rumor about Lindsay Lohan and Charlie Sheen buying the Betty Ford Clinic to lure you in.

Come to think of it, that does sound really intriguing doesn’t it?

 

 

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Bouncing Back – Again, and Again, and Again

by admin on July 25, 2011

The human body is an amazing thing. Think of all the abuse it takes over the years and yet it still manages to perform into, in most cases, a ripe old age.

Think of how much junk we pump into it that it doesn’t need – how much fat and salt and sugar and chemicals of various kinds disguised as food.

The tale of the tape

Think of how many calories we consume that we don’t need – almost 600 in a Big Mac alone, and that’s without the fries and soda – that just sit on our hips adding pound after pound to our weight and inch after inch to our girth

Too much

Think of all the physical activity we don’t get because our jobs are sedentary and are so far from our homes that we have to travel either in a car or by public transportation.

So, it’s no wonder that over the years we get larger. What is a wonder is that our bodies somehow manage to endure all this and still keep functioning at a pretty high rate, still keep moving, even if we start to move a little slower and with a tad less grace and elegance than in the past.

Your loss is your gain

And then one day we lose weight, or we start to workout and we tone up our muscles and people come up to us and say “hey, you’re looking really good these days, what are you doing?”

And we notice that we feel better. Our clothes aren’t so tight or they’re even loose! We sleep better. We have more energy. We look better. Our eyes are brighter, our skin clearer.

Yet despite all that we all too often slip back into old habits. You’ve probably heard the statistic, that around 95% of people who lose weight on a diet put it back on – and in many cases add a few extra pounds just for good luck. Why is that? Well, one obvious reason is that we are surrounded by temptation every where we go. You can’t walk down the street without seeing a store or restaurant selling you calorie-laden, junk-filled foods. You can’t go to the office without some well-meaning soul (maybe it’s you) bringing in cakes or muffins or cookies (how come no one ever brings in broccoli florets). The things that proved our undoing in the first place are all around us. And you can’t open up a magazine or newspaper, watch a TV show or go online without being bombarded by yet more ads for yet more tempting foods.

But it’s more than just temptation. It’s habit. We use food to console us when we’re down. We use it to reward us when we feel we’ve done something good. We use it as an occasion to hang out with friends. We use it as a courtship ritual when we go out on a date with someone.

It’s with us every single day of our lives but when was the last time you seriously thought about what you are eating, not just at that meal, but at every meal, with every product you buy?

Without being aware of what we are doing, of what we are putting into our mouth, it’s all to easy to slip back into old habits, to see the numbers on the bathroom scale slowly rise.

Bouncing back

But remember, if you lost it once, you can lose it again. And this time, knowing where you went wrong last time,  you can avoid those same pitfalls. Maybe you’ll find new pitfalls, but then you learn from those and bounce back again.

You know how good you felt, how good you looked when you were doing the right thing. That’s an awfully powerful incentive to stop doing the wrong thing and recapture that feeling isn’t it.

 

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Silencing the Demons

by admin on July 17, 2011

You’ve got to love a man who writes books about the Tour de France, King Arthur, horse racing and the fabulously titled tome “The Elderly Writer’s Guide to Indifferent Young Women’.

The gent in question is Graeme Fife, an English writer, essayist, poet, broadcaster and obviously a lover of sports and women – even if the feelings are not always returned.

Graeme Fife knows pain

I came across him recently in a cafe in San Francisco. Not him in the flesh you understand, but his words, his spirit. Appropriately enough we had popped in for a coffee and to watch the latest round of the Tour de France. High on the wall, above the massive video screens was the following quote:

“The greatest battle is not physical but psychological. The demons telling us to give up when we push ourselves to the limit can never be silenced for good. They must always be answered by the quiet, the steady dignity that simply refuses to give in. Courage. We all suffer. Keep going”

It was one of the simplest, yet most eloquent expression of the struggle we all face in trying to quieten the voices inside our head that tell us we’re not good enough, not smart enough, not strong enough, not worthy enough. Those voices may pop up  in a race up and down the mountains of southern France, or a tennis match with an old friend, or just in every day life, but one way or another we’re all victims of them.

I found the words wonderful because they are a reminder that just as we are struggling to get through, to succeed, or sometimes simply just to hold on, others are going through exactly the same thing. The doubts and uncertainties, the crises of confidence or faith, the insecurities that we are feeling, are felt by millions of others all around the world.

We none of us are free of these demons. Sometimes they win, beating us into submission. Sometimes we win. And it’s those triumphs, however few and far between, that ultimately keep us pushing forward.

Dreams don’t come cheap. Success doesn’t come easily, or last. It’s a daily struggle. A lifelong battle. And it’s only at the end that we can see if we have held true to ourselves, to our hopes, and tried our best.

We may not have won, but in fighting, in trying, in persevering we have found something even greater than an occasional victory. We have found ourselves.

 

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Motivating Ideas for Exercise

by admin on June 29, 2011

Kevin and I have an exercise routine!  That is the first step in getting motivated to exercise on a weekly basis, have some kind of routine.  Sometimes we play squash, sometimes we take hikes and sometimes we just go to the gym and workout.  Lately, due to little nagging injuries, we’ve been working out at the gym 3 to 5 times a week and not playing squash.

Our workouts are 3o minutes of aerobics followed by 3o minutes of free weights or core muscle exercises.  It’s not really exciting, and I’d rather be playing squash because my idea of exercise is doing something fun and physical.   Working out at the gym for an hour just doesn’t keep me motivated so in order to keep me motivated I like to play some psychological mind games to me going.

Most of the time I’ll tell myself that I really won’t do anything for the full 30 minute time allotment.  I’ll set the stairmaster to 30 minutes but I’ll tell myself I’ll really stop at 25.  Right?  Wrong…everytime I get to the 25 minute mark I always rationalize….”Well, it’s only 5 minutes more why not continue, but if I want to stop I can.

I don’t know why I do that, but for some reason it gives me permission to continue to exercise for the full 30 minutes.  I guess it’s because I have an out.  It’s silly, I know, so I thought I’d take a quiz on what motivates people to exercise.  What works and what doesn’t?  It’s pretty revealing what motivates folks to exercise.  It turns out my method is unique. (no one else seems to use my tried and true mind game)

An article published in the Idea Fitness  Journal in 2006, authored by Jim Gavin, Madeleine McBrearty and Daniel Sequin reviewed more than 250 studies about exercise psychology to try to find out what motivates us, why and how we participate in exercise.  They came up with a quiz that is pretty revealing about why we are motivated to exercise.

For instance,

Q: According to the studies reviewed, what is the most important motive for exercise for all age groups and genders?

To lose weight or tone up

 

 

To improve health

 

 

 

To have fun

 

 

 

To meet men/women

 

 

 

I chose: To lose weight  and tone up – Wrong!

According to the studies reviewed, what is the most important motive for exercise for all age groups and genders?

is:

To improve health

 

Q: What is one of the most important motivators for exercise?

Tracking progress on a regular basis

 

 

Seeing significant results

 

 

 

Scheduling workouts just like other appointments

 

 

 

Having support from family and friends

 

 

 

I chose: Seeing significant results.  Wrong!

 

The correct answer to:

What is one of the most important motivators for exercise?

is:

Having support from family and friends

Q: According to the studies reviewed, which of the following activities offers the most body satisfaction in women?

Hatha yoga

 

 

Aerobics

 

 

 

Strength Training

 

 

 

Watching TV

 

 

 

I chose aerobics:  Wrong!

The correct answer to:

According to the studies reviewed, which of the following activities offers the most body satisfaction in women?

is:

Hatha yoga

Q: In a study of middle-aged women, which group of exercisers showed more concern about body image and weight?

Women who don’t have kids

 

 

Women who exercise regularly

 

 

 

Women who don’t exercise regularly

 

 

 

Women who work less hours

 

 

 

I chose:  Women who exercise regularly.  Wrong!

The correct answer to:

In a study of middle-aged women, which group of exercisers showed more concern about body image and weight?

is:

Women who don’t exercise regularly

It went on like that and so it turns out, I don’t know “Jack” about what motivates people to exercise!

All I know is that I exercise because I don’t really like it, unless I ‘m playing squash and I exercise because I don’t have to!  I can stop whenever I want.  (That’s my mind game, and my motivation and I’m sticking to it! What’s yours?)

 

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A Salt On Our Intelligence!

by admin on June 27, 2011

For years we have been told that salt is bad for us, that it increases our risk of high blood pressure, which in turn increases our risk of heart disease and stroke. We were told to try and reduce our salt intake, to look out for high levels of salt in processed foods and even in soda and bread. But now a new study comes along and says ‘nah, don’t worry, it’s not a big deal after all.”

Healthy food!

In fact this new study from Europe even has the temerity to suggest that high consumption might have some benefits. As my dear old mother would say, WTF! Though in her case it stands for “well, that’s funny”

This study followed 3,681 middle-aged Europeans (don’t you love how precise they are, not almost 3700 or more than 3600 but exactly 3,681) who didn’t have high blood pressure or heart disease at the start of the study. They were divided into three groups: low salt intake, moderate salt intake and high salt intake. There were 50 deaths in the low salt group, 24 in the moderate group and just 10 in the high salt group.

More salt less risk

The biggest shocker – based on all that we’d been warned about for years – was that the heart disease risk in the low salt group was 56 percent higher than the high salt group. So the less salt the study participants consumed the more likely they were to die of heart disease.

You mean all those years of not lavishing salt on my fish and chips were wasted!!!

What’s up with that!

What’s going on here? Is this just one of those aberrations where one research group comes up with a finding that is different from everything that has gone before, or is this that rare beast that shows that everything else that came before was rubbish and wrong! And the groups that have been telling us that salt is bad for us are not exactly scientific lightweights. They include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Medical Association, and the American Heart Association.

Well, the first thing to do here, as with all studies, is to look at who did it. This one is published by the Business School of Happiness which, despite the great name doesn’t carry quite the same weight as, say Harvard Medical School. The second thing is to look at what the study is promoting. If you follow the news release promoting it closely you find out that it links you to a new book that promotes, well, the new book. OK, two strikes against it so far. But the biggest strike is the third one, and that this pretty much contradicts everything that has gone before.

One of the best things you can do is never base anything you do on one study, no matter how much you would like to. There are thousands of new studies that come out every month, some are bound to contradict others that have gone before. The key is to look at the overall weight of the evidence not just the bits that suit you. In this case, most evidence, most studies, most scientific bodies still say salt is a problem, that it is linked to a higher risk of heart disease and stroke and so you really should try and limit your consumption of it.

To say otherwise, based on this one study, would be to insalt your intelligence.

 

 

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