In This Issue...
Finally... A Natural Way To Get Rid Of
Annoying Reading Glasses
You know how people are always saying that money can’t buy happiness? It turns out they’re wrong!
I’ve recently seen not one but two studies that reveal some important findings on what cash can deliver in terms of quality of life. It’s a compelling topic these days -- not least of all because the economy is forcing lots of us to confront the question of what we really need in order to have a good life.
The Price of Happiness
First comes a report from Princeton University published late last year in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Using data involving 450,000 Americans from the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, the researchers analyzed the relationship between household income and each respondent’s self-reported emotional state (what the researchers call "day-to-day happiness") as well as their overall feelings about their well-being and "satisfaction" with life.
Happiness has a price tag: The researchers learned that happiness climbed right along with income up to about $75,000 per year, after which more income didn’t predictably buy more happiness. But -- here’s the interesting point -- satisfaction with life overall did continue to rise right along with income beyond $75,000 per year. People who earned more... and more... felt that much better about the quality of their lives.
It’s About Choices...
And now we’ve just seen a second study on happiness, a meta-analysis (a study of other studies), that is quite remarkable. Social scientists from the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand were looking to learn whether having money or having choices in life ("autonomy") is more important for well-being. They examined data from a huge sample (420,599 individuals from 63 countries spanning more than 30 years) -- some of these people were wealthy, some poor... some living in capitalist societies, some socialist... some in developed nations and others in countries that can still be classified as "third-world."
Result: Regardless of where respondents lived, they tended to report greater well-being if they felt that they had autonomy. And if money bought the ability to make more and better choices -- as it does here in the US, for instance -- it did indeed buy happiness. In situations where money did not correlate with autonomy -- you guessed it -- no correlation with happiness or a better life.
What’s New?
I put in a call to James Maddux, PhD, a psychology professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, and asked for his help in putting this information into context. He told me that the real surprise is in the second study, that showed that across cultures, happiness depended upon having autonomy... no matter what their background, humans want to have the chance at independent accomplishment.
Dr. Maddux explained that "in broad strokes, previous research has demonstrated that in Western cultures, like those in the US, Canada and Europe, autonomy and individualism correlated with happiness, but not so in traditional Eastern cultures (such as Japan, China and India), where identity is collectivist, rooted less in personal identity than in what the group -- your family, your community, your employer -- has accomplished."
Beyond that, said Dr. Maddux, the body of research studying the link between income and satisfaction with life has yielded some wisdom that is generalizable (and, frankly, familiar) to most people trying to find the correct balance between money and satisfaction in life...
There’s nothing magic about $75,000. The real point of that study, Dr. Maddux explained, is that it reinforces that being poor is no picnic. "It is important to have enough income to meet your basic needs," he said. Cost of living varies greatly depending on many variables -- where you live, how you are accustomed to living, whether you live alone or with a spouse or family, etc., so $75,000 represented a kind of a rough marker in the study.
After your needs are met, money counts for less. Once you’ve reached the point where you are comfortably able to pay your bills, earning more will make you happier... just not as much as you might guess. Dr. Maddux said that "additional income buys additional happiness to a point... then a bit more money buys a bit more happiness... and so on... but for everyone, there comes a point when extra money isn’t really going to add anything to your life at all."
Personal development matters. Using money to expand your knowledge and understanding (for instance, putting your dollars toward travel, education, the pursuit of special interests or donating money to philanthropy) increases happiness, Dr. Maddux noted.
Possessions can make you less happy. In contrast, "the body of research suggests that if you want additional money so you can buy stuff -- like cars, clothes and jewelry -- with the goal of impressing or keeping up with others, these pursuits will actually diminish your happiness," Dr. Maddux said, adding that "research shows that the pursuit of ’bling’ contributes to unhappiness because people probably are pursuing material goods at the expense of self-development and relationships."
Personally, I am not surprised by these findings -- they are entirely consistent with what I believe about every aspect of life. Having the opportunity to function as an individual, free to work hard and to be rewarded for it -- emotionally and financially -- leads to great satisfaction. There is no better feeling than the feeling of accomplishment.
Source(s):
James Maddux, PhD, professor of psychology, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia.
Shocking #2 Cause of Cancer
An official at the American Cancer Society said that it's easy to avoid half of all cancers.
However, an adviser to the American Institute for Cancer Research was even more optimistic when he said that nine out of 10 cancers are related to factors we control.
Of course, their #1 piece of advice is "stop smoking." We all know that. But I bet you don't know the #2 cause of cancer. It's something totally under your control -- it's much easier than quitting cigarettes -- and it's the last thing you'd ever expect. I'll tell you about it in a moment.
Keep reading...
Is Arsenic in Your Chicken?
Forgive me for sounding like a testy mother here, but it seems inexcusable that poultry eaters still need to worry about whether they’re ingesting arsenic with their lunch or dinner since this whole problem was brought to light -- and should have been solved -- years ago!
I mean really -- arsenic?
Regular readers of Daily Health News may recall our 2007 story (see Daily Health News, November 26, 2007) alerting consumers to the fact that many supermarket brands of chicken had been found to contain trace amounts of arsenic. It does indeed sound too crazy to be true, but an arsenic compound called roxarsone has long been added to chicken feed as a way to kill parasites, promote growth and improve pigmentation of the meat -- and, because the arsenic made its way into our soil and water, environmental groups began sounding warnings. When the European Union refused to approve the use of roxarsone in 1999, the practice was only clucked at disapprovingly here in the US. Some chicken sellers (such as Tyson and McDonalds) agreed to stop using this type of arsenic-laced feed, but by and large US chicken farmers kept on doing what they have always done -- and neither the FDA nor the USDA did anything to discourage them.
What Took So Long?
Now, four years later, the FDA has finally undertaken a study of its own and found that there are very low levels of arsenic in supermarket chicken and higher levels in chicken livers. Why has the FDA been so lackadaisical? Until now, FDA scientists believed that any arsenic the chickens had ingested would have been, first of all, of a kind that isn’t harmful and, second, excreted in the chicken feces anyway. They were wrong on both counts.
Acknowledging that arsenic is a carcinogen, and ideally something to avoid, the FDA continues to insist that levels of arsenic in chicken are so modest that the meat is safe to eat... but, this time around, there has been reaction. Pfizer Chemical, a major manufacturer of the feed additive, has voluntarily suspended US sales of roxarsone. The company has continued to sell it to more than a dozen countries around the world, and there may be smaller manufacturers of arsenic-laced chicken feed still in operation here in the US.
I decided to check back with our expert on the topic, David Wallinga, MD, MPA, senior advisor in science, food and health at the nonprofit Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, for his thoughts on what kind of danger we really face.
Arsenic Causes Cancer
He told me that "there is no level of a cancer-causing chemical like arsenic that is 'safe.’" And he affirmed that the type of arsenic found in the chicken livers and meat is known to cause many sorts of cancer. "It’s impossible to make a blanket statement as to danger across the whole population, but any additional exposure adds to your risk of getting those cancers," he said.
What to do? Pfizer’s additive is off the market for the moment. Whether it stays off, or whether Pfizer finds some way to reformulate it, remains to be seen. And Pfizer continues to sell other, non-roxarsone arsenic products for poultry feed that have not yet come under scrutiny. The hope is that after the FDA’s announcement, the fear of litigation will cause manufacturers of all arsenic products to get out of the market for good.
As for shopping at the supermarket right now, while we know that Tyson is roxarsone-free, other brands of chicken may well have been raised on arsenic-laced feed. Dr. Wallinga says that he buys directly from a farmer who doesn’t use arsenic in his feed. If that isn’t an option for you, organic chicken is another good bet. Let’s hope this thing finally gets resolved. In the meantime, be careful out there!
Source(s):
David Wallinga, MD, MPA, senior advisor in science, food and health at the nonprofit Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Minneapolis.
Be well,
Carole Jackson
Bottom Line’s Daily Health News
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