Your money or (and) your life Advice and dissent Some of you may know that I'm a big fan of the alternative financial media - things like small niche newsletters and online investment advisories. Even if you didn't know this about me, it really shouldn't come as a surprise to you, since I make my living (proudly, I might add) as a member of the alternative medical media... But I know all too well that you don't read my Daily Dose for advice about how to safeguard your wealth - only your health. Your finances are none of my business, nor would I presume to be expert enough at managing money (although these non-mainstream niche advisories have done pretty well by me, I must say) to be able to advise you on how to build yours into a fortune... Now, if only the investment people would mind their own business! Or, uh, just plain BUSINESS. Here's what I'm talking about: In many of the money letters I get, there's also an increasingly regular thread of health and living advice. I suppose it's done to ratchet up the perceived value for the correspondence or to try and broaden its appeal - or perhaps it's to encourage forwarding of the message to others on subscribers' e-mail lists in the hope of corralling new members. Who knows? But whatever the reason, this kind of commentary irritates me. Why? Because like with licensed investment advice (yet much more so, to be honest), health and medical advice is a highly specialized area - one in which not just anyone is qualified to dispense guidance... The problem with this kind of thing is that these investment gurus simply parrot the health content of mainstream "health minutes" and other establishment sources - all of which are DEAD WRONG about how to live long, healthy, and pain-free. Need some examples of bad advice I read all the time from investment folks? Here goes:
EXERCISE FOR HOURS ON END - "It's good for the heart," they say. Yet the real numbers (the ones the Big Media isn't telling you) tell a different story of the "benefits" of the joint-murdering lunacy that most people have been brainwashed into believing is good for them. People collapse and die all the time while exercising, which is why doctors administer stress tests with life support equipment at the ready.
DRINK GALLONS OF WATER - "It cleanses toxins and is good for the prostate," they claim. But few things kill and maim more marathoners and race cyclists (not to mention fraternity pledges) than hyponatremia, a sodium and electrolyte deficiency brought on by water overload that causes swelling of the brain, coma, and death. Hear about that in the media lately? STEER CLEAR OF FAT IN THE DIET - "Vegans and vegetarians live longer!" they trumpet. But what they don't know is that without certain animal fats, your heart pumps weaker, your tissues become fragile, and your brain becomes dull. True, some whole grains are good for you (like ground flaxseed), but the vast bulk of vegetables do nothing but clog arteries and cause you to pack on pounds. These are just a few of the well-meant whoppers that misguided financial advisors and money newsletters I have received are putting out there regularly in their pages. And while I respect their right to have opinions and share them with their readers (after all, where would I be if we all didn't have that right), I do wish they'd leave the medical advice to someone who learned it from experience, education, and the clinical evaluation of peer-reviewed facts - not to people who ripped it from their local Big Three TV affiliate or some sidebar in the Podunk Post. Sticking to what I know - and what YOU should know, William Campbell Douglass II, MD | 
