Gina Kolata: Everything you think you know is WRONG

The NYT’s Gina Kolata has dominated the Most-Emailed List this week with three stories assailing conventional wisdom about what’s healthy – perfect to freak out ultra-hydrating, fanatically gym-going New Yorkers (who assume they can totally compensate for those vice-addled years of hard-drinking and chain-smoking by mainlining Jamba Juice and going all Karl Lagerfeld).

Fearmongering by the numbers: “Some Extra Heft May Be Helpful, New Study Says” still tops the Most-Emailed List (or “MEL” for short), weighing in at #3 for the past week. “Study Cautions Runners to Limit Their Water Intake” was the real humdinger, topping MEL in its April 14th-heyday and holding on strong for the past week (her NYT Mag piece on “The Body Heretic: It Scorns Our Efforts” isn’t MEL-worthy for the past week, but I’m pretty sure it was up there at least briefly. I know I read it, a tiny sliver of fear piercing the probaby-irreversibly-clogged arteries of my heart).

Other hopeful stories by Kolata, the Debbie Downer of the New York Times, include “Diet and Lose Weight? Scientists Say ‘Prove It!’” and “Good Pill, Bad Pill: Science Makes It Hard to Decipher.”

We know, we know – don’t shoot the messenger. Sorry Gina. Still, how ironic that the showtune reference you inspire means “no worries.”

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