Tag : drugs

Berries help prevent heart disease. A study that looked at 93,000 nurses over 18 years, found that the more deeply pigmented berries they consumed, the lower the risk of heart attacks.

The magic number for blueberries, strawberries and raspberries seems to be about three servings per week. Even those women who were overweight, smoked, or suffered from diabetes had a reduction in their risk of heart attacks, when deeply pigmented berries were a significant part of their diet. But as expected, thin women who exercise regularly did even better than their sedentary and overweight counterparts.

Once more we find

We human beings seem to like to label things – the simpler, the better! This urge to put everything into simple categories definitely applies to drugs and supplements – we like to think that Drug A always has one particular effect, and Supplement B has a different one. Just take this pill or use this crème and, voila, you always get one simple outcome.

That may be tidy, but it’s seldom accurate. In the real world, the drugs and supplements we take usually refuse to cooperate with this fantasy. Instead, one compound can have many effects – and many compounds can have similar effects. Often none of these interactions seem to correlate very well to the labels we put on them.