Not News

I hate it when things that aren't new or revolutionary are trumpeted as such. Who better to make such a sweeping declaration than Sympatico.ca, the trusted home of Canadians! (Top left hand corner.) This patronizing claim ranks right up there with Fox News' "Fair and Balanced" bullshit. Statements like these should be a giant red flag of skepticism warning of potential ulterior motives hidden behind the brush of celeb gossip and infotainment.

I digress.

On today's Sympatico homepage one of the featured news articles is "10 simple ways to cut cancer risk." Before I continue, let me say for the record, of course I think cancer is bad, and no, I don't necessarily disagree with anything the list says. It's the mundane idiocy of it that bugs me.

Their fantastic 10-point list boils down to this:
1) Eat fruits and vegetables
2) Eat whole grains
3) Eat eggs
4) Drink milk
5) Eat garlic and onions
6) Exercise
7) Wear sunscreen
8) Don't smoke
9) Don't drink
10) Don't be fat.

Items 1 through 5:
Of these suggestions, numbers one and two have been uncontested mainstays of healthy eating plans since 1956. Numbers three and four were removed from food guides due to lack of evidence. Number 5 is out of date. (The allium family was reclassified as a subfamily in 2009 - maybe Sympatico should try updating their articles before reprinting them after two years.) For all these claims the article sites "research" and "researchers" without providing any citations or even vague references to sources. For all we know, the writers three-year-old nephew could have provided the "research." In any case, nothing remotely new was provided here and if you didn't know that fruits, vegetables and whole grains are good for you....well, there's some suggestions for you below.

Item 6:
Well, duh. Exercise may provide some extra protection for heavy smokers? What? 'Extra' protection? In addition to what? You can smoke, but exercise makes it all better. That's like a parent handing their child a running chain saw and a band-aid.

Item 7:
Once again, old news strikes again. Exposure to UV rays has long been established to contribute to skin cancers. Hey, that's probably why the WHO warned about it in 2005!

Item 8:
Seriously, at this point, if you don't know about/are unconvinced by the evidence connecting smoking and lung cancer, (among other kinds) maybe you should do us all a favour: smoke more and eliminate yourself from the human gene pool as quickly as possible. Thanks.

Item 9:
See point 8, except the key with drinking seems to be moderation. Yup, even winos can enjoy some health benefits!

Item 10:
Broken record time. If you're unconvinced of by the evidence/complete obviousness of how negatively being morbidly obese affects damn near everything you need to do on a daily basis, go ahead and have another box of Twinkies for dinner. Fatty.

So, to summarize; 1) Don't do things you know are bad for you; 2) Eat real food; 3) Don't reprint articles from two years ago that contain information which wasn't even new back then.

Must have been a slow news day.