Quotes About Health

There's no one else who can make the daily decisions—eating well, exercising regularly—that deliver lifelong health. In other words, being healthy is a "do-it-yourself" project. Seen in that light, we are all biohackers. Yet too many people entrust their day-to-day decisions to authority figures—the tools, as it were—on the assumption that the experts actually know what they're talking about.

as scientifically sound health advice, "Everything in moderation" is as nourishing as white bread. The very people who need to eat more moderately are also the ones who seem to have the most difficulty actually doing so.

Barefoot running is often described as a fad—one that will fizzle after a few years. But as Dr. Lieberman says, "If barefoot running is a fad, then it's a two-million-year-old fad.

Far more calories are used to heat the body than to move it.

Listening to vegetarians talk about the benefits of a plant-based diet, it can be hard to separate health claims from ideological, ethical, or environmental claims. At various times it has been claimed that vegetarianism can end world hunger; end food cravings; reverse global warming; reverse heart disease; reduce violent crime; reduce cholesterol; improve the sex drive; reduce the sex drive; end sexism; cure cancer, and usher in the Age of Aquarius. Apparently soybeans grow best in bullshit.

Fevers are a mixed blessing. They damage good tissues in the body, and some runaway fevers end up killing people. Also, for as long as people have had fevers, they've used herbal medicines (including ones containing the active ingredient in aspirin) to relieve them. But it's also possible that ancients knew something we don't: that helping along a fever may actually be beneficial.

thyroid hormone increases the rates of most chemical reactions in all cells, thus helping to set the tempo of bodily activity.

Insulin controls glucose metabolism;

Spondylolisthesis

These statistics suggest very strongly that the cause of most back pain is emotional, for the years between thirty and sixty are the ages that fall into what I would call the years of responsibility. This is the period in one's life when one is under the most strain to succeed, to provide and excel, and it is logical that this is when one would experience the highest incidence of TMS.

Readers who are interested in an excellent review of where medicine is today vis-à-vis the mind-body connection should read The Healer Within by Steven Locke, MD, and Douglas Colligan (New York: Dutton, 1986).

We take life seriously and responsibly. As our lives become more complex, we generate more and more tension. This is the basis for most back pain.

The 2010 Global Burden of Disease study of 291 conditions ranked low back pain as the highest cause of disability and sixth in terms of overall burden.

Extremely important work is being done in the brain biochemistry section of the National Institutes of Mental Health on the subject of brain-body interaction. One of the pioneers in this research is Candace Pert, once chief of that section, whose work is demonstrating communication between the brain and different parts and systems of the body. For those interested, an excellent review of this work appeared in the June 1989 issue of Smithsonian, written by Stephen S. Hall.

There's nothing like a little physical pain to keep your mind off your emotional problems." Charles M. Schulz, the creator of Peanuts

Our brains have decided that feeling tense, which is the appropriate response to being tense, is too unpleasant to bear and is not as socially acceptable as having something "physically" wrong. And so the brain makes a few adjustments in circuitry and instead of looking and acting like a nervous wreck, presto—a bellyache or a backache

The Healer Within by Steven Locke, MD, and Douglas Colligan (New York: Dutton, 1986).

This does not mean that eating potassium chloride in place of sodium chloride, in a low-salt formulation, is risky—it isn't. We need much more potassium chloride in our diet than sodium chloride, but normally we get all we need in the food we eat.

Our health is what we make of it - give it attention and it improves, give it none and it subsides.

Our growing softness, our increasing lack of physical fitness, is a menace to our security.

Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a bike ride.

Hangovers had a way of teaching people that drinking alcohol was not a good idea.

He dipped his finger in it and tasted. "Bitter," he said. "That's a good sign," Jesper said knowingly. They all looked at him. "Medicine is supposed to taste bad," he explained. "The worse it tastes, the better it is for you. Everyone knows that.

Bitter," he said. "That's a good sign," Jesper said knowingly. They all looked at him. "Medicine is supposed to taste bad," he explained. "The worse it tastes, the better it is for you. Everyone knows that.