It is interesting how you can so easily look up ‘facts’ nowadays. I was doing some background research the other day and came across an article in The Independent Newspaper stating that ‘exercise may speed up symptoms of dementia’ looking through their on-line pages I came across another article from December 2017 saying ‘exercise can decrease the symptoms’. The same picture of exercising, leotard dressed elderly folk was used.
Confused……!
Yup! so was I.
My other half suffers with Fibromyalgia and found an article on the negative link between Nightshade foods and her condition. Nightshade foods include potatoes, tomatoes, aubergines, peppers, chillies, staple foods in a balanced diet. Her first reaction was to say that we need to look at our diet (notice the word ‘our’!), in looking up the subject today I found very few human studies on the link between the conditions. Most evidence is based on opinion, whilst I am not putting down anybodies opinion, I am not changing my whole diet based on non-evidence based ones. Indeed a friend of mine has very severe allergic reactions to members of the Nightshade (Belladonna Family), if she eats Tomatoes for example, she could die, that sort of severe reaction. Whilst eating potatoes means that she will sleep a lot. This tells me that it may not be plants per se, but any one of the main chemicals found in them. Not only that, each plant has different levels of chemical content, how you cook them effects the chemical content too.
So this subject has inbuilt complexities.
This access to information, especially around health related subjects, sadly seem to be ‘simplified’ for the consumption of the consumer and then tend to form the basis of an opinion based, as opposed to evidence based approach.
What then is the moral behind this Blog? Firstly, I would never change anything based solely on an on-line article, or health / lifestyle piece in a magazine or newspaper, or a magazine style TV programme. They may all be well-meaning, however they may not be as helpful as they think they are being. Secondly, any changes you make to your lifestyle, if you have a health condition, check it out with a Health Professional first and thirdly, if changes do help you, they may not help a person who has similar problems.