a1 mew health scare Je dangers of using mobile phones, sleep 9 litte or the risks involved in cons is always @ newspaper sto Ke ‘and guilt and encourage the Bypoch of us. In their guide to healthy i Breaking the Rules Won't Break and clinical professor of surgery at UCA M, Love and co-author Alice Domat, explore these warnings can be substantiated, conch all too often, headlines misread research findi percentages of risk are incorrectly understood reported. Despite the fact that nrany people are drivel by fear to take every medical test and new pill available, the authors make the case that many of us are leading healthier lives than we realise B Surveys suggest that the majority of people are getting, too little sleep at night, to the point at which their nnotmal activities ate dist upted. The experts, howevel, think such polls give the wrong impression. “It would secur frou these polls drat you need at least six hours’ sleep, with seven being ideal,” says Love. “If you ‘examine the data, you'll notice that those who sleep for seven hours 2 night throughout their entire lives tend to live the longest. But if you have a lot less sleep for a couple of days, you can catch up. It’s all about the overall pattern over your lifetime.” And although research conducted by the University of Warwick Medical School did discover that sleep deprivation is associated with an almost two-fold risk of obesity for both children and adults, Domar believes that a lot of work still needs to be done in the field. “No direct causal relationship has been found just yet. Unhealthy people tend! to sleep a fot but we dou’t kuow if it’s the ‘licease making them sleep or vice versa” C It is well reported that stress triggers heart attacks. According toan ongoing study of 735 American middle~ ‘aged or elderly men who had good cardiovascular health, those who scored the highest on four different warsatinng! The feel-good factor scales of tension were far more likely to sulfer heart attacks in later life. Yet there is anegative aspect toa low hheart rate oo: while anxiety may make you improve a bad arca of your life, ignoring things might cause the situation to deteriorate. Even so, there is no doubt that avoiding the upper end of the streoo spectrum ia a good idea. “Stress improves your performance to a point, above which the way you handle things rapidly declines,” says Domar. ‘When it comes to a healthy diet, the rules are widely known: keep your saturated fats low, avoid too much salt and sugar, include a little of everything. But be lowing overly prescriptive rules as there is agonising about whether you have the five portions of fruit or vegetables a dav. iag’t there to support such stringency, little or no effect on those food, apart from vitamin ying in sunshine-poor wen effects of herbal who eat a D, which, environments, remedies, which, “Bven the benefits of remedies which there exists evidence in likely to be due to the placet as echinacea, for pure just as ‘as anything else.” It is generally recommended that adults should do 30 minutes of moderate exercise, five days a week. However, a recent survey in the UK suggests that 94% of men and 96% of women fail to achieve this. “Some people can be naturally fit and not need to exercise s0 much,” says Lave. “If yon are a young mother with a toddler, you probably don’t need to spend so much time at the gym. It can depend a lot on your age.” “But exercise is still the single best thing you can do for your health,” says Domar. “It’e good to be on the go ‘the whole time, People in their late teens and twenties tend to be fitter than they think they are, Essentially, what we're trying to do is to remove the guilt if you can’t achieve the lofty target of 30 minutes a day, five daysa week.” 51