What to Beleive?

I'm a compulsive reader of pop science news.  Today's front page info in the NYTimes is that the recommendation that just about everybody over 50 should drastically cut down on salt in order not to have heart attacks an strokes is exaggerated. Newer studies show that extremely low levels of salt are not beneficial.

Time and again I read "revised"recommendations.  A couple of weeks ago the NYTimes Sunday Magazine had big article about the breast cancer brouhaha that's been rift for 25 years; and today I see a note saying Angelina Jolie has had a double mastectomy as a preventive measure since she has a "breast cancer" gene and this may spur other women to do the same. Jez!!!

The papers are full of it.  (Take that comment however you wish.) Another article is about the benefits of gut flora in helping disgest our food.  Oh, it goes on and on and on.  'These articles are like chocolate for my curiosity.  I think seeing the ebbs and flows, the hypes and horrors about health issues keep me fairly level headed. I firmly believe that moderation in all things is the best advice. All this reading also gives me a healthy skepticism about every new fad and every new product. 

I am happy to have begun seeing a few articles pointing out that the multimillion dollar hand sanitizer industry is doing more harm than good by killing healthful bacteria that in small ambient amounts teaches our immune systems to withstand the big bad germs.  It's a bit like the over use of antibiotics that continues to be rift which makes the big bad germs mutate so that we need ever different antibiotic and some have become super-germs resistant to whatever is sent in to shoot them down.  Oh... I could go on, it's an enormous topic.  It provides jobs for a lot reporters who love combing all the medical literature and bringing us the sound bite without the substance.