ON 3 JANUARY, I broke a New Year鈥檚 resolution. I tried to stay strong but I cracked. I responded to the Twitter trolls.
An extract of my new book 鈥� a round-up of the science of personal health, based largely on articles in 麻豆传媒 鈥� had just appeared in The Times and had been picked up by Apple News. I was about to do a BBC interview, and I was feeling pretty pleased with myself.
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The tweets burst my bubble. One sneered at me for 鈥渏ust trotting out mainstream nutrition advice鈥�. Another described the book as 鈥渃rap鈥�. It hadn鈥檛 even been published at that point. Hey-ho. Foolishly, I took the bait.
My Twitter antagonists seemed to be devotees of the decidedly non-mainstream nutritional advice that saturated fat is good for you. They didn鈥檛 like the fact that I said it almost certainly isn鈥檛.
Don鈥檛 get me wrong. If people want to eat lots of saturated fat, that is their choice. I wrote a book about an evidence-based approach to personal health, but I鈥檓 not in the business of telling people what they should do with it. My goal was simply to say: 鈥渢his is what the science says 鈥� use it how you will鈥�.
Devotees of alternative diets aside, it turns out that there is a huge appetite for such an approach. Many of us are confused and overwhelmed by the health messages we read, watch and hear every day, some of which appear flatly contradictory. As the saying goes, is red wine good or bad for you this week?
Most health coverage is based on wishful thinking or is little more than advertising. Promises of quick fixes and the claims of cynical marketeers and self-appointed gurus quickly drown out solid, dependable and 鈥� let鈥檚 face it 鈥� dull mainstream views.
News values trump science values every time, even when we are talking about actual science. Say there are two studies looking at the link between artificial sweeteners and obesity. One finds that sweeteners cause obesity, the other that they prevent it. Those studies may have very different designs or sample sizes, run for different lengths of time or even be done in rats rather than humans. But it is only the first one that will ever make headlines.
The thing is, science tells us to a first approximation how to live a healthy life. It is just that most of the advice is quite obvious and unsurprising: eat a varied, balanced diet, try to get enough sleep, exercise as often as you can, don鈥檛 drink too much alcohol and don鈥檛 fixate on a single lifestyle factor. I make no apology for trotting out mainstream advice because that is, in the main, what science tells us works.
That doesn鈥檛 mean that designing and sticking to an evidence-based health regime that you can maintain for years rather than weeks or months is trivial. That is why I wrote a whole book on it. I am often asked what I consider to be the most useful piece of advice in it. My answer: get to know the science. All of it. It may be nuanced, it may be imperfect, it may be incomplete in places, but if you want to live a long and healthy life it is a far better guide than any flashy fad. Oh, and don鈥檛 make resolutions that you probably won鈥檛 keep.
Want to know more about how to live better for longer?
Join Graham Lawton for his tips on 26 February in London. To find out more, visit:
