Last time, we spoke about the possible pitfalls of interpreting conflicting health information via the internet.  It’s great to have all this health information available at our fingertips, but that doesn’t mean it’s accurate.  You would think that with everything we know, the overall health of our society would naturally improve.  Not so. 

What’s missing?

In order to parley information into something useful we must employ the second attribute of the A.W.A.R.E .formula; Wisdom. 

Science, based on the available information at that time, can prove something, which can then be disproved at a later time based on a new experiment or new information.  In the mean time, decisions and behaviors are developed based on what eventually proves to be false information.  As an example, it used to be common knowledge that dietary fats caused an increase in cholesterol.  Today we know that sugar is the actual culprit. 

Collecting information to guide you in your endeavors is called inductive reasoning.  The downside is that if you don’t have all the information your conclusions and resulting behavior might actually be harmful.  To use the above example; Not enough dietary fat can lead your body’s inability to make fat soluble hormones.  

By the way, this wasn’t bad for everyone.  It seems the pharmaceutical companies turned a pretty good profit on statins and hormone replacement therapy. 

This brings me to the next critical step in the wisdom of navigating health information.  See you next time!