Health News Unhealthy

Your new excuse for ignoring the health-care debate: Health news is bad for your health. So says University of Minnesota professor and longtime journalist Gary Schwitzer, who has sifted through medical-news reports for three years. Schwitzer writes that closely following health news is decidedly unhealthy. Among the biggest offenders, according to Schwitzer: a recent CBS Early Show segment that gives false hope to paraplegics; a report that says that “sleep-dieting” would add years to your life; and any articles that use sensationalist language like “cure” and “breakthrough.” If there’s one thing health reports do, the Medical Society of the State of New York has acknowledged, it’s send people to doctors looking for medication they don’t need.