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The top 3 health myths for the over 50s
While keeping active and being careful about what you eat can extend your life expectancy significantly, it offers no guarantees. This is why it is a good idea to have life insurance if you have people that depend on your income, just in case the worst should happen. The good news is that it is never too late to take out a life insurance policy – check out this page about over 50 life insurance for more information.
Once you have that sorted out, you can concentrate on prolonging your life by taking exercise and improving your diet. However, there is a lot of misinformation around regarding how you might go about this. Here, we expose three of the biggest health myths that, for one reason or another, are prevalent in our culture.
Eating low-fat foods will make you healthy
It is a common misconception that reducing your intake of fats will automatically make you lose weight. This has been known to be wrong for over a century. In fact, eating fatty foods has been shown to be slimming. Only carbohydrates - sugary and starchy foods - put weight on. Low-fat foods often have a high sugar content, which is exactly what you don’t want. So, if you want to be healthier and slimmer, you need to change your diet to cut down on carbs, and increase your intake of fat from real, unprocessed foods.
Drinking milk increases phlegm production
It has long been believed that dairy products such as milk and cheese promote the production of phlegm, and therefore should be avoided when you have a cold. However, a recent experiment, in which volunteers were infected with the cold virus, and some of them drank a lot of milk, there was no difference in the levels of congestion or the weight of nasal secretions between those that drunk lots of milk and those that did not.
Lowering your cholesterol level will prevent cardiac problems
For years, people have been trying to lower their cholesterol levels in an effort to reduce their risk of heart attacks and strokes. However, this idea was based on flawed, animal studies. Scientists have recently discovered that as people age their cholesterol levels rise and this protects them. The all-cause death rate falls as cholesterol levels rise. Furthermore, if your cholesterol levels are too low, you will become very ill indeed. For more about cholesterol, visit this Wikipedia page.
Last updated 14 June 2012