Forget the experts and live your life

REMEMBER WHEN the Heart Foundation of Jamaica started this whole thing about “are you drinking yourself sick?”

Well, the slogan has caught on very nicely and people are seemingly taking less sugar in their diet these days.

You know what? That’s great. We’ve seen all the statistics about how excess sugar can be bad for your health.

So people have been living the slogan from the commercials and have chosen to “drink water instead”.

But look yah now nuh. I was doing some reading on symptoms and causes of brain swelling.

Ahm, the reason I was doing that piece of research is not really important right now (smiles and laughs nervously). Let’s move on.

Lo and behold, while doing my reading, I ran into more than a few articles that said drinking too much water can actually be a bad thing.

One article on www.deccanchronicle.com/ said drinking too much water “can cause excess fluid accumulation, leading to dangerously low sodium levels in the blood or hyponatremia – a life-threatening condition that can result in brain swelling”.

Now mind you, it also stated that the hypo-whatever is more common in older people, but I still wasn’t totally at ease.

I know overhydration is also a real thing. But I always figured that was only for people who are running long races like marathons or stuff like that.

But another article I read said that drinking too much water can also lead to swelling of the lips, hands, and feet.

Same article said that too much water in your body might hinder your kidney functions. Oh, and one more gem from that article is that when you consume too much water, it increases the volume of blood inside your body.

That means extra pressure on your ticky ticker, and that’s one of the last places you want to have issues. Ditto with the aforementioned kidneys (but at least you’ve got two of those).

My point to all this is that the same scientists who tell you not to do this and limit doing that went to the same schools as the ones telling you that water can kill you, and not in a flood or hurricane type of way.

TIRED OF THE EXPERTS

I just get tired sometimes of hearing experts telling us what to eat, what not to eat, when to eat what we eat, how to eat what we eat and, well, you get my point.

As I’ve got older and more (in some ways) stubborn, I’ve come to realise everyone has just got to follow their own path.

Life is way too short to live it exclusively according to what experts tell you.

As far as I’m concerned, there are some things you flat out shouldn’t try. Cocaine, heroin, and their evil brethren are not OK.

Some people will argue that whatever you consume must be in moderation. But guess what? If you choose to overdo it, be prepared for the consequences. That’s all I’m saying.

So eat the burger with extra cheese or finish the whole bucket of mangoes. If it’s gonna kill you, at least you’ll go out with a full stomach. Later.