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TIME recently reported on a new study that suggests heavy drinkers outlive non-drinkers.  However, as usual with these studies, it’s not as cut and dry as the title suggests.

This latest study is a bit very misleading, especially for women.   First, it had less than 2,000 participants.  Second, only 37% of the participants were women (that’s just a few hundred women).  Considering the fact that there have been other studies on the harmful effects of alcohol on women, and that these studies have had over a million women participants, I’m not inclined to take this latest study very seriously.  It certainly wouldn’t be advised that a woman start drinking or increase her drinking based on this study.

Here are a few facts about the dangerous effects that alcohol (even in small amounts) can have on women…

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It’s no secret that I’m not fond of diet pills, and I’ve written quite a bit about my disdain for “Alli:  The Diarrhea Diet” over the last few years.  And it is now being reported that the prescription diet pill “Meridia” increases a person’s risk of heart attack and stroke.  Didn’t we learn anything from the whole “Fen-Phen” debacle?

When it comes to taking any medication, the first thing you have to do is determine if the benefits outweigh the risks of taking it.  So let’s take a look at the benefits.  It seems that Meridia offers less than a nine pound reduction in weight.  But is this really a benefit?  This is a drug that is prescribed by physicians to “obese” patients (people that need to lose a lot of weight before they will see any health benefits), so a nine pound reduction in weight hardly seems to be worth the risk.

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What are you doing right now?  Aside from reading this post, you are most likely sitting somewhere.  On your couch?  At your desk?  In a chair?  Wherever you find yourself sitting, I’m sure that it won’t come as a surprise to you, that sitting isn’t good for your health.  But did you know that it is so bad for your health that it could be taking years off of your life?

It’s true.

Unfortunately, I can’t even say that I’m setting a good example for any of you by doing something other than sitting on the couch with my laptop myself.  However, this new study did get me thinking about ways I might be able to do less sitting, and I think I am going to give a few of them a try (tomorrow).

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