My Healthy Predictions For 2010

In keeping with blogging tradition, I feel compelled to write something scintillating about where I see the industry going this coming year. After all, it is New Year's Eve!

I'll start by referring you to a post I just completed on my brand new blog Body Mind Freedom.

My girlfriend read it and remarked that it contained little that was upbeat.

So, feeling a little like Scrooge Mac Duck saying "Bah Humbug" to the Christmas fairy, I started to ponder why I was such a sour puss and whether it was time to get excited again.

And before too long it came to me.

I think the health, fitness and weight-loss industries need a major wake-up call.

If you've read even a smattering of my posts over the last year, you'll already know that I am saddened at the lot of personal fitness trainers and nutrition professionals.

These well-intentioned individuals are little more than low-level cogs in the antiquated machinery or our respective health care systems (USA and UK).

And I make no apologies for the fact that I think these systems are operating on borrowed time. People are getting sick from a host of preventable diseases and our solution is to plug them in, medicate ... and foster further dependance, suffering and inbalance.

All of which needs to be paid for by someone. Increasing load, less bucks ... something has to give.

But I digress.

Here is a quick summary of what might change in 2010: Nothing! Nix! Zippo! Not a thing.

If it is broke ... don't fix it!

We will continue to get sicker, sooner. But actuaries will refute this with statistical proof that average age expectancy is up, so nothing is rotten in the state of Denmark.

We will continue to abrogate our responsibility to ourselves for our own state of well-being. After all what are health care systems and insurance companies for?

We will continue to ignore the obvious benefits of organic foods in spite of the science. Science, like accounting, is malleable ... and money always talks.

Besides, no-one likes to feel naive, so the dissidents have an easy sell in a recession.

We will continue searching for magic bullets, quick fixes and super-foods. Isolation will lose none of its lustre. People will not see that a supplement is the ultimate refined food.

And the formal status quo will continue to endorse its existing set of sacred cows.

Then we will wring our hands in frustration that our kids are becoming fat and diabetic. We will endorse hugely expensive programs to show them how to get outside and play again.

But health and safety fears will still encourage kids to wear helmuts and check for allergies first before using sticking plasters (elastoplast). Really!

We may rue that politics and legislation trump common sense and foster paranoia ... but we will do nothing. Except tell people to participate in the process, so they too can change the world (or at least have a licence to complain).

On a positive note (see, I listen to my most ardent critics), some people will keep digging and refuse to succumb to the inexorable tide of media conditioning.

These enlightened souls will relish responsibility and choose to embrace the notion that the best health insurance is getting healthy and living a healthy lifestyle.

These special people will be my inspiration.

Thanks for all your kind support in 2009. May this next decade bring you the happiness you deserve.

Aspirin No Longer In Vogue

Researchers for the Drugs nad Therapeutics Bulletin (DTB) have now come out to say that aspirin can cause serious internal bleeding and does not prevent deaths from cardiovascular disease.

"Based on this new evidence" the Royal College of GP's support these findings and are against the use of aspirin as a prophylactic. On the BBC Dr Rosemary herself has also confirmed that it is no longer recommended to take 75mg/day to stave off heart attacks, stroke and thrombosis. It can irritate the stomach, causing bleeding ulcers which may ultimately lead to anaemia.

In fact, so too do other magic bullets like ginkgo biloba and high dose garlic.

Fancy that ... what a revelation. Even better, the polypill I have blogged about mercilessly in the past contains ... drum roll please ... aspirin. So it's no longer recommended either.

Ah, the sweet smell of toll free vindication.

But it still keeps getting better. Guess what is now in favour? You got it ... diet and exercise, 5-a-day. And our friends hosting BBC breakfast, on learning this, described this massive breakthrough in medical perspicacity as "sage advice".

Come on!

Does it take the Royal College of GP's and BBC's own intrepid "in-house" doctor to say all this before people get that magic bullets aren't a substitute for healthy living? Nor are they an insurance policy that buys you time so you can abuse yourself just that little bit longer.

That wasn't a rhetorical question! The short answer, sadly, is "no".

What is it with people that they just will not accept this? Stop trying to medicate yourself into good health. Nature didn't design medications (amazing though this may be for the pharmaceutical industry to believe).

Doctors aren't God either, nor will they ever be.

Your best insurance against heart disease includes a diet that predominates in fresh, whole, ripe, raw, organic fruit and vegetables. Guess who designed those?

Nature.

Add to this simple diet sufficient daily exercise, a bouyant disposition, generous amounts of fresh air, sunshine, genuine relaxation and quality sleep and a mindset that moves on from unresolved conflicts.

Really folks. It's that simple.

And no, smoking, drinking and drugging are not good for you ... even if you have an auntie who smoked 20-a-day, drank like a dolphin and lived to the ripe old age of 86.

Believe me, her system was a mess. And her last few years were hell on earth. Don't think otherwise. Get real. Go simple. Stop looking for ways to cheat nature.

And stop trying to blame your genes!