Cynical Activities - B
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BIRDS, PET
And forget "Pretty Polly": pet birds can give humans psittacosis, which causes flu-like symptoms and can lead to severe pneumonia and other health problems. |
BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS
Here's one for the So-What's-the-Alternative? Department: massive blood transfusions can undermine the immune system. |
BODY IMAGES, MALE
A growing number of boys and men are obsessed with their bodies to the point of suffering from muscle dysmorphia, an excessive preoccupation with body size and muscularity, at the expense of their health, schoolwork, jobs, and personal relationships. In the worst cases, sufferers require hospitalization, become reluctant to leave the house, or attempt suicide. We blame Popeye and his biceps. |
BOSTON
Heading into town to watch the Red Sox lose to the Yankees again? Leave yourself plenty of spare time. In a survey of sixty-eight American cities, Boston was sixth worst in terms of traffic, with almost half of daily travel taking place in congested conditions. |
BOTTLE-FEEDING
If you're bottle-feeding your baby, you may be more likely to get breast cancer than women who breast-feed for two years or more, and your baby has a higher risk of allergies, respiratory problems, ear infections, sudden infant death syndrome, diabetes, baby-bottle tooth decay, obesity, high blood pressure, and in the developing world, malnourishment. He or she may also suffer intellectually. |
BOWLING ALLEYS
If you work in a bowling alley, you have an unusually high risk of dying from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The dangers of life in the fast lanes...have unpleasant side effects. Pollen from corn genetically modified to produce its own pesticides can kill the caterpillars that produce monarch butterflies. Engineering sugar beets to resist herbicides allows heavier use of sprays that kill weeds, eliminating the skylarks that ate their seeds. Where weeds are cross-pollinated with engineered genes, they can become "super weeds" that resist herbicides themselves. Genetically altered food might also have harmful effects on nutrition, cause allergic reactions, make bacteria resistant to antibiotics, and be toxic. Do we really need square tomatoes that badly? |
BREAD
Sliced bread doesn't deserve its great reputation. If you're sensitive to gluten, eating bread can give you headaches or loss of coordination. Scientists from the U.S. and Australia have theorized that the refined starches in bread could increase insulin levels, which might make your eyeballs too long and lead to shortsightedness. |
BREAST-FEEDING
If you breast-feed your baby for more than four months, he or she could have a greater risk of developing heart disease as an adult. Children with allergies who were breast-fed by mothers with asthma are at greater risk of developing asthma themselves. Since breast milk doesn't contain vitamin D, breast-fed children are more likely to develop rickets. And breast-feeding has been linked to an increased risk of babies developing atopic dermatitis. |
BREAST IMPLANTS
If you have breast implants, you're more likely to get cancers of the brain and lung, and (at least if the implants involve silicone gel) may suffer from a range of problems including toxic shock syndrome, scarring, asymmetry, connective-tissue diseases from ruptured implants, and rheumatologic symptoms. Silicone gel implants can also interfere with the detection of breast cancer by obscuring mammography images of possible tumors. Maybe you should just buy a Wonderbra. |
BREATHING
Stop breathing now. Breathing produces free radicals, which can prompt premature aging, wrinkles, hardened arteries, stiff joints, cataracts, and even cancer. You have been warned. |
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