Health Risks Women Worry Too Much About
Feb. 19, 2003 -- 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.
Nuclear Radiation: While it does cause cancer, nuclear radiation is actually a relatively weak carcinogen. In fact, researchers followed 90,000 Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors for 60 years found only about 500 more people have gotten cancer than would have been expected if there had been no bombs at all.
Mammograms: The risk that most people fear with mammography is cancer from radiation. But the radiation involved in this test is very, very weak. Even at high doses, this type of radiation is still not a large risk.
Pesticides on Food: The risks of pesticide-related illness are low compared with how afraid people seem to be of these chemicals. Studies that followed farm workers, who are exposed to much higher levels of pesticides than most of the population, had rates of disease that were much smaller than expected..
Low Fear with Relatively High Risk
And here are five risks we don't worry about as much as we should:
The Sun: The sun causes as many skin cancers every year as all other forms of cancer combined in the United States — a total of 1.3 million per year. And while most skin cancer is treatable, there are still 7,800 melanoma deaths every year.
Indoor Air Pollution: Given that nine out of every 10 breaths we take are indoors, you may feel protected from pollution. But our indoor environment is now filled with many more pollutants than the air outside. Cleaners, cosmetics, chemicals in rugs and paint, mold, dust, pet and mite dander, to name a few. Moreover, most buildings, including our homes, are sealed up so tightly that air pollutants levels build up, contributing to problems such as asthma and sick building syndrome.
Accidents in the Home: Most people will be surprised to learn that home accidents are the eighth-largest category of death in America, and are the leading cause of death for people age 1-38! The top killers are:Falls: Falls kills more than 16,000 people per year, 13,000 of whom are over the age of 65.
Poisoning: While the majority of poisoning cases are kids, most poisoning deaths are actually not in children, but rather in adults aged 35-55 — often due to use of abusive drugs.
Drowning: The leading cause of death for kids age 1 to 4.
Fire: In 2000, 3,600 Americans died from fires.
Choking: Food or other objects that block the airway caused 3,400 deaths in the year 2000.
Medical Errors: The Institute of Medicine estimates that medical errors kill as many as 98,000 people every year in U.S. hospitals alone. More than just the surgeon cutting off the wrong leg (which is quite rare), medical errors include anything that goes wrong in the medical system that causes harm or death. For example: incorrect prescriptions, infections you get in the hospital because of poor ventilation or staff not washing their hands often enough, or even delayed test results, which can cause a disease/condition to go undiagnosed.
Antibiotic Resistance: The abundant use of antibiotics has put the population at the risk of "super-germs" that have learned to adapt to these rugs. There are many common infections that are already resistant to antibiotics. Some say it is now a race between "Us," who must find new ways to kill the bacteria, and "Them" — the bacteria, to develop new tricks to keep our drugs from killing them. It seems we are barely ahead in this race, and they are catching up quickly.