You Call That Health Food?

Take a moment and consider this logic: 1. Fat-free foods are healthy. 2. Skittles are fat-free. 3. Therefore, Skittles are healthy. Make sense? Of course not. But it's exactly the type of reasoning that food manufacturers want you to use.

You see, in our example, we started with a false premise. That's because the term "fat-free" is often code for "high-sugar" -- an attribute that makes a product the opposite of healthy. Case in point: Johns Hopkins University researchers recently determined that high blood sugar is an independent risk factor for heart disease. So high-glycemic foods -- those such as sugars and starches that raise your blood sugar dramatically -- are inherently unhealthy. (See Skittles, above.)

Unfortunately, faulty food logic is far less obvious when you're shopping outside the candy aisle. Why? Because making healthy choices isn't as simple as knowing that beans are packed with fiber, or that fruits are loaded with disease-fighting antioxidants. After all, manufacturers often add ingredients, such as sugar, that can instantly turn a good snack bad. As a result, many of the products that you think are wholesome are anything but. And that's why we've created our list of the dirty dozen: 12 "healthy" foods that you can -- and should -- live without.

Yogurt with Fruit at the Bottom
The upside: Yogurt and fruit are two of the healthiest foods known to man.

The downside: Corn syrup is not. But that's exactly what's used to make these products supersweet. For example, a cup of Colombo blueberry yogurt contains 36 grams (g) of sugar, only about half of which is found naturally in the yogurt and fruit. The rest comes in the form of "added" sugar -- or what we prefer to call "unnecessary."
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The Sandwich Generation: Cancer Diagnoses for Young Adults Overlooked

For Young Adults, Cancer Can Often Go Undiagnosed and Untreated
Katherine Miller (right) inspired 'Nightline's' story on the Sandwich Generation, young adults who remained undiagnosed and untreated for cancer. At the age of 26, Miller died of colorectal cancer after being diagnosed only six months prior. Frank O'Day (left) is currently battling Stage Four Hodgkin's Lymphoma at the age of 29.

He has not expressed an ounce of self-pity or a hint of anger, though for Frank O'Day it is easy to be angry. He is 29 years old and he has cancer. But according to O'Day, when it comes to cancer, anger is just a wasted emotion.

O'Day has been battling stage four Hodgkin's lymphoma with optimism, humor and dignity. He fights the way anyone would want to fight after a doctor delivers such tragic news. And even at 29, O'Day knows that hope is his only weapon.

Katherine Miller was also filled with hope when she was diagnosed with colorectal cancer at the age of 25, just as she was beginning medical school at Des Moines University.

She too believed in her ability to conquer the disease. Miller, however, did not win that fight. With barely a hint of illness before her diagnosis, six months later she died at the age of 26.
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U.S. Medical Schools, Drug Makers Share Strong Ties

TUESDAY, Oct. 16 (HealthDay News) -- More than half of department chairs at U.S. medical schools and teaching hospitals have financial ties with the drug industry, a new study finds.

These institutional relationships seemed to be just as widespread as those of individual physicians or scientists with industry.

"There is not a single aspect of medicine in which the drug companies do not have substantial and deep relationships, affecting not only doctors-in-training, resident physicians, researchers, physicians-in-practice, the people who review drugs for the federal government and the people who review studies," said lead researcher Eric Campbell, associate professor at the Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston.

"Drug companies have relationships with everyone," he continued. "They're involved in every aspect of medicine. Someone has to decide which of these is OK."

The study, the first to examine the extent of these institutional relationships, is published in the Oct. 17 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Although Campbell himself reported no financial conflicts, one co-author did report having served as a consultant for drug makers Genentech and GlaxoSmithKline. ...more