Health Risks Women Worry Too Much About
Feb. 19 -- Do you worry too much? Or worse yet — do you worry that you worry too much?
"Most of us are more afraid than we have ever been, and not just from any single risk that happens to be grabbing headlines at any given point in time," note risk experts David Ropeik and George Gray, authors of RISK: A Practical Guide for Deciding What's really Safe and What's Really Dangerous in the World Around You, (Houghton Mifflin Co., 2002).
It seems that we have become a nation of worriers, fretting over food additives and lurking bathroom bacteria. But Ropeik and Gray say that our fears are often unjustified or misplaced — "we may be too afraid of lesser risks and not concerned enough about the bigger ones."
To help us sort out what is, and isn't, worry-worthy, ABCNEWS asked Ropeik to share the top five common health fears of women that are not as risky as most of us think, and also the top five risks that we probably don't worry enough about.
High Fear Yet Relatively Low Risk
Based on the number of people who get sick or die from exposure, the following health risks are smaller (though not zero) than many people believe:
Hazardous Waste: Once a frightening specter, the risk of hazardous waste has been all but eliminated by cleanup efforts of the past 20 years. The Environmental Protection Agency now says that waste in dump sites is the lowest hazard of all public health concerns that it deals with.
Silicone Breast Implants: After comparing thousands of people with different types of breast implants, the Institute of Medicine found no increased risk whatsoever due to silicone. The theory has been disproved. However, while there is no increased risk due to silicone, there is still some risk of disease from breast implants overall.
Artificial Sweeteners: Five major types of sweeteners, including saccharin (Sweet 'n Low) and aspartame (Equal, Nutrasweet), have been used worldwide for many years and there is absolutely no evidence in humans that these products are dangerous. Original concerns were based on old studies showing animals that ingested very high quantities of saccharin had elevated rates of liver cancer, but further studies have never found this to be true in humans.
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