Why We Have No Idea What Really Makes Us Healthy

The short answer to the question: "Do We Really Know What Makes Us Healthy?" is No. The long answer–the really long answer– is laid out in rather more detail by author Gary Taubes in the New York Times Sunday Magazine piece titled, unsurprisingly "Do We Really Know What Makes Us Healthy?" One of the many reasons we do not know what makes us healthy, says Taubes, is the presumption of preventive medicine. "The goal of the endeavor is
to tell those of us who are otherwise in fine health how to remain
healthy longer," writes Taubes. "But this advice comes with the expectation that any
prescription given — whether diet or drug or a change in lifestyle —
will indeed prevent disease rather than be the agent of our disability
or untimely death. With that presumption, how unambiguous does the
evidence have to be before any advice is offered?"
Quite unambiguous, Geezer would like to think. Whatever. This is a long and worthwhile read, the kind of thing one might save for an afternoon when one is recovering from an illness what wasn’t supposed to afflict us, because, after all, we did all the things the scientists told us to do.
Read more in the New York Times.