Facts

One of the people I work with drinks only water, I asked him why he didn't drink tea or coffee, he said they are diuretics, supposedly they dehydrate you. I said how do you know that? He said it is what he was told. This led onto a conversation about what we are told and what we believe and then as I left work and drove home I started to think about all the things that we think are true, and whether they are true or not.

Most of us will believe certain things but never spend any time researching it, all we do is repeat what we are told by some so-called expert, media organisation or what some bloke down the pub told you. I have looked at this subject before in my postings, but I wanted to list a number of things and I want you to ask yourself two questions. Firstly,what do you believe about the subject? Secondly have you spent any time researching it?

ADHD, is there such a thing?
Dyslexia, same as above!
Heart disease and its correlation to a) saturated fat and b) cholesterol.
Man made global warming.
Asbestos.
Passive smoking, is it really bad for you?
Eating five pieces of fruit and veg a day, is it really as good for you as we are told?
Drinking whilst pregnant, does it do the baby any harm?
Isreal, does this country deserve the amount of vitriol it gets?
Sell by dates, are they just a money spinner for the supermarkets and food companies?
Water, is Drinking eight glasses of it a day better for you than drinking eight cups of tea or coffee?

There's a few to be going on with, you might have strong opinions on none, some or all of these issues. But if you haven't spent anytime researching any of these subjects how do you know what the truth is? That is all I am asking. There is no objective, scientific way of diagnosing ADHD, yet every year thousand's of children are drugged and no one bats an eyelid.

The government issues advice on many different things, but a lot of the time this advice isn't based upon sound science, but so many people follow it like sheep. Look at the recent outbreak of swine flu in which we were told many, many thousand's of people were going to die, it hasn't happened. CJD, the human form of mad cow disease was, we were told going to kill hundreds of thousands of people, again it hasn't.

For years every job that has required a medical has used the Body Mass Index (BMI)as a way of deciding whether someone is overweight or not. Even now it is still used by many organisations to gauge the suitability of candidates. BMI was invented by a Belgian man in 1869 when the average height of men was 5'6", it is two dimensional and does not take into consideration the persons build and the amount of muscle they have. It is only in very recent times after a little research that people have started to question BMI and its ability to gauge someones health.

Many people believe what they hear without questioning and all I would ask is spend a little time researching and you will quickly see that there are usually at least one other point of view which is just as valid.