What Healthy Food are Actually Unhealthy?

When you think about healthy foods, what comes to mind? Acai fruit? Yogurt? Oatmeal? Our perception of what food is healthful is influenced by a wide range of factors: scientific studies, stories in the media, what our mother told us and what food manufacturers want us to believe.

If you’re a walker, you’ve probably heard the recommendation to walk 10,000 steps (or about five miles) every day for health. Did you ever wonder how experts arrived at this amount? 

Not through science. The original concept came from a 1964 Japanese marketing campaign to promote an early pedometer called Manpo-Kei, which is literally translated as 10,000 steps meter. Naturally, as the pedometer craze hit the U.S. around 2005, the 10k-step concept became popular here — and it has stuck.

When it comes to your heart, being obese is a real killer. Researchers have known for years that obesity raises the risk of heart failure for men (11 percent) and women (14 percent), but a new study shows that for some women, being obese can double — or triple — the risk of heart failure.

Have you ever volunteered for a good cause? If yes, how did it make you feel? Did it boost your mood? What about when you donated to your favorite charity? It turns out volunteering and giving are two activities associated with good health and longevity. 

Let’s focus on volunteering first.

How can volunteering improve my health?

Studies show that people who volunteer tend to have:

Does your life have meaning? Does it have purpose? If you answered yes, here’s some good news: Studies show that having a purpose can lead to better health outcomes.

That’s the bottom line, but from there it gets a little murky. Let’s start with how we define what gives us meaning or purpose in life.

Of all the things we eat, nothing perhaps does more harm than foods that are awash in sugar. Cakes, cookies, sugar-sweetened beverages like gourmet coffee and sodas come to mind. But sugar is everywhere — in low-fat yogurt and barbecue sauces, in granola, protein bars and canned soup, in canned fruit, smoothies and even spaghetti sauce and ketchup. Most processed foods that contain extra sugar are quick and easier to consume.

Depression is often thought of as a women’s health issue. Women are almost twice as likely as men to experience symptoms of depression, according to the Office on Women’s Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 

But the truth is: Depression also affects men and in large numbers — about six million American men struggle with depression. Unfortunately, they’re less likely to address their depression than women. 

Most men aren’t too concerned about their own bone density. Understandably so. Bone thinning affects far more women than men. Take hips for example. Hip osteopenia is prevalent in 56 percent of women and 18 percent of men and hip osteoporosis affects 16 percent of women and 2 percent of men, according to a study published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine Research. 

The year I graduated from medical school, 1982, a brave new world of cardiology was just beginning. Researchers conducting a trial of the drug lovastatin discovered it lowered cholesterol in a small group of patients with a genetic predisposition for dangerously high cholesterol. Patients with this condition were at substantial risk of stroke and heart attack and often died from these cardiovascular events at an early age.

Do you see your dentist regularly?

If you do, good for you. Unfortunately, only about two-thirds of Americans have seen their dentists in the last 12 months. That’s bad for their teeth, and it may also be bad for their heart. That’s because there’s a link between what’s going on in your mouth and what’s going on with your heart. We’ve known for a while that if you have periodontal disease, a common infection that leads to swollen, red and tender gums, you are 49 percent more likely to have a heart attack.