Hi Dr. Nick | Issue 10

Hi Dr. Nick | Issue 10

Ten weeks of health and wisdom

Hi everybody!

Being an old man with a prostate the size of a beachball, I find it difficult to celebrate birthdays. Once you pass 21 they’re just reminders of the inevitable march towards death upon which we are quickly forgotten, relegated to fleeting thoughts scattered through the years. But hey, its pretty neat that this is the tenth Dr Nick column!

Let’s be honest though, of the 4,500 words of health advice offered, roughly 0% will have filtered through because you’re fucking shit at taking health advice. This isn’t a “haha some readers are bad at this” sort of “you,” I mean you are shit. Dick.

To be fair, so am I. So is everybody. Don’t believe me? Raise your hand if you actually drink eight glasses of water a day. This isn’t a “haha, Dr Nick is joking to prove a point” sort of thing, I mean you should raise your hand right now. I don’t care if you’re in a rectal exam class and the lecturer just asked for a volunteer – if you actually drink eight glasses of water then raise your hand.

Now if you do see someone with their hand in the air, looking douchily chuffed for proving some people do follow good health advice, I want you to douchily tell them that Dr Nick is never wrong. Ever. There’s absolutely no point in drinking that much water a day: it has no proven benefit. That health advice has no medical background, yet it’s widely accepted in the community. As I said, we’re all shit at taking health advice … but often it’s not our fault.

The brain is a pretty awesome kilo and a half of fat, but it’s not perfect. We filter huge portions of information down to what we absolutely need to know. We quickly forget framing statements and information sources, only holding onto bits of the information that resonated with us. Suddenly we end up with all this bullshit information being accepted as true, with most never questioning it.

Often it’s pretty trivial (“is your personality left- or right-brained?”) but sometimes it crops up in more serious debates. Vague, citation-less statements used to “prove” a point are constantly thrown around in the debates about legalising drugs, gay marriage, abortion etc.

My health advice is this: never trust “facts” you haven’t personally verified, particularly those that begin with “studies show …” I’m not saying systematically review the literature on everything you hear, but be aware if you haven’t actually read the studies you could be looking like a twat for acting under, or proclaiming, a falsehood. And studies show that’s bad.
This article first appeared in Issue 10, 2013.
Posted 4:00pm Sunday 5th May 2013 by Dr. Nick.