ARE you struggling to decide what to eat or drink thanks to the never-ending stream of confusing health scares?
It seems that never a day goes by without another warning that we're urged to heed if we want to live longer, healthier lives, but the advice can often appear contradictory.
Dr Peter Marsh, co-director of the Social Issues Research Centre recognises the problem and warns that our exposure to high doses of health scares can result in a kind of "warning fatigue".
He says people can become so accustomed to this advice that they become de-sensitised by unfounded scares they take no need of warnings, so believe it's time to take a deep breath while we sort out fact from fiction and present some calming advice.
Warnings about excessive binge drinking abound but many 'social drinkers' like to comfort themselves by constantly claiming that wine, particularly red, may reduce the risk of heart disease.
The reality is that in 1997 the World Health Organisation calculated the reduced risk of coronary disease was found at the level of only one drink consumed every second day – and for drinkers alcohol undoubtedly increases the risk of heart disease.
Moderation is the answer as current medical advice shows men should not regularly drink more than three to four units a day and women not more than two to three.
"Regularly" means drinking every day or most days of the week. Consistently drinking more than these amounts risks damage to health. The danger increases the longer drinkers continue – and the more they consume.
We're all encouraged to drink two litres (eight glasses) of water daily to replace what we lose through normal bodily functions.
"As an absolute minimum we should aim for one litre a day," says kidney specialist Professor David Oliveira of St George's hospital, London.
"That figure's calculated on the basis that, daily, we lose about 100ml of water breathing out, 500ml sweating and another 500ml in urine."
While it's sensible to drink up to two litres a day, he says that food, especially fruit and vegetables, can provide around 20 per cent of intake.
Some foods have a higher water content than others.
Caffeine addicts could take cheer from a recent study in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition which found that coffee drinkers had the same level of hydration as those who stuck to water.
While being unfit carries a similar risk of heart disease to smoking 20 cigarettes a day, the latest research on exercise is optimistic.
You do not need impractical levels of exercise to be healthy, according to Paul Clayton, chair of the forum on Food and Health at the Royal Society of Medicine.
He points out that benefits kick in from quite a low-level programme: that means moderate exercise three times per week for 20 minutes, at a rate that raises the heart rate by 30 per cent, makes you sweat and raise your breathing level.
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