Would I Lie To You?
I was doing some research for another piece that I'm working on (geez, I sound like a real journalist) and came upon a few health items that are helpful and somewhat scary.
1.) 10% of all Multiple Sclerosis diagnosis are wrong- Kind of scary, isn't it? More than 2 million people are affected by MS worldwide. If this is true, then more than 200,000 have been misdiagnosed. Even scarier is almost all of them have already started treatment.
2.) Blood Pressure doesn't matter for people over the age of 60- I can't wait to tell my doctor about this. In fact, I may even schedule an appointment just to break this news to him. So if this is really true, then the medicine I started taking a few years ago, that brought my BP from 170/120 to 110/80ish really wasn't needed? I think an experiment is needed. I need to find someone over the age of 60 that takes blood pressure meds. Man, where can I find such a person? Then I'd like him/her to stop taking their medicine for a month. We can take their BP and see how they fare. Should be interesting. Btw, I realize what they mean is that BP plays less a factor in heart disease, stroke, etc after the age of 60. Yeah, we can experiment with that one, too.
3.) Certain Foods Help Ward Off Parkinson's Disease- Not only will having these in your diet help keep PD at bay but it will help those with PD stay healthier longer. Now it's not a secret that eating healthier and keeping active leads to being healthier but since this is personal for me, let's check it out and see how I'm doing. The foods listed are berries, apples, red wine, tea. I'm a big berry eater. I love blueberries, strawberries, raspberries and blackberries. Just bought a big box of blueberries today. 1 point for me. Not as good with apples. I can't remember the last time I had an apple. I like them but not as much as berries and other fruits. 1 point against. Red Wine...looks like another point against. I don't drink any alcohol. Haven't for about 10 years. But now seeing this I guess I can start again. So it's healthier to drink wine than to abstain? Finally there's tea. I quit drinking coffee a couple months ago. I have hot tea almost every day, usually an herbal peach. It's good stuff. So looks like I broke even on the foods.
That's about all on the medical front. Enjoy your weekend. I'm off to call my doctor and then to the grocery store for some apples and red wine.