We lived in an information society. With 24 hour news on TV, texting, internet and a mobile phone almost within reach every minute of the day, we are on dangers of information overload. It is said that there is more information on a Sunday edition of the New York Times than somebody 200 years ago has accessed to in their whole lifetime.

The challenge becomes which information or data should come in for decision making, and which are accurate? In general, it becomes a formidable challenge. 10 years ago, you would go to the library and if you want to research for instance gingko biloba, you would get maybe 10 articles about it. Just now, I did a search on it in Google and it gave me 5 million links. The challenge is to sort out all the information, and to know that not all information is correct, and are you better off after reading 500 articles about it, but which 100 of them potentially might not be accurate?

Needless to say, we are full of misconceptions, let us say about health matters. Is eating chocolate good, or bad? ( chocolate is said to contain flavanoids that prevents vascular diseases that leads to heart attacks). Does drinking coffee really contribute to hypertension? Is not eating rice, or carbohydrates really an effective way to lose weight? How effective are herbal supplements ( like Black cohosh, dong quai, garlic ginger, gingko biloba, ephedra sinica, Ma huang garlic, or St John’s wort) and are there really no side effects?

One of the better blog sites you may want to look into is written by a doctor, Dr. Gerry Tan (he’s my brother-in-law). He has a blog called That Health Rules: Personal Views on Health… Because Health Should not be taken for Granted. The blog can be found on http://www.health-is-wealth.blogs.friendster.com/ I guess from the titles, you can easily glean what is the topic of the blog – it is that health is wealth, and it is important for us to invest the time and resources in order to be healthy.

He updates the site almost daily, and I guess the most valuable thing is we know that it is written with proper medical background knowledge, and therefore, we can more or less count on the data and recommendations without much second guessing. For instance, just a few minutes reading over it the last few weeks have cleared some of the cobwebs and misinformation that I used to harbor:

1.) There is no conclusive evidence that artificial sweeteners can cause cancer.

2.) Eating low fat foods is not synonymous to low calorie, and therefore eating low fat food can still make you gain weight.

3.) There is no conclusive evidence that Vitamin C can cure the common cold.

4.) Melatonin is a good supplement for enducing sleep but it is not regulated, and have not been studied extensively. Taking it on short terms or once in a while may be beneficial, but you should be careful of side effects on taking it on a long time basis.

5.) If you have back aches and pains , it might be due to vitamin D deficiency, which may hardly be cured by eating multiple vitamins. One recommendation is to bask in the sun for a few minutes a day.

6.) Letting your kids watch too much tv may be harmful in more ways than one. There is conclusive evidence that points kids who watch tv tend to eat more of the calorie dense, low nutrient food that TV advertises which leads to obesity.

There are more great tips in the blog, and if you have time, drop by regularly. The older you get, the more you realize that at the end of the day, the prime factor of what you really have contributing to your happiness is really your physical well being and the presence or absence of pain in your body.