Drop Dead Healthy by A. Jacobs (books to read to increase intelligence .TXT) 📕

I’ve made up a list for myself based on advice from toxicologists and the best available evidence, which I’m putting in the appendix.

Checkup: Month 12

     Weight: 159 (how did it go up?)

     Blood pressure: 100/69

     Trips to gym this month: 15

     Bottles of red wine consumed this year so far: 87

     Bottles of dark red, antioxidant-rich Sardinian wine, which supposedly helps the Sardinians’ long life expectancy: 1

My current state of mind: self-righteous. I feared this would happen. I try to fight it, but I can feel it taking hold: I’m becoming a health fundamentalist.

I had the same experience when I lived by the Bible. After a few months, I became holier than thou, appalled by the sinfulness of the secular world. I’d flip through an Us Weekly, and curl my lip in disgust at all the coveting and greed and harlotry therein.

And now here I am, healthier than thou. I spend way too much time judging others. I know it’s obnoxious, and probably unhealthy, but in my defense, I’m surrounded by some massive transgressions against the gods of health.

The other day, I watched a man on the street open a bag of Doritos. Apparently, he decided it would be too much effort to use his fingers to lift the triangular foodlike chips to his mouth. So he just shoved his face in the bag and started chomping away, like a horse with a feed bag. A while later, he came up for air, his cheeks coated with glow-in-the-dark orange powder. I had to avert my eyes.

Later, I was running around the reservoir, and passed by two European tourists slowly walking and blowing smoke from their Gitanes in the paths of runners. I turned around and glared at them the way the New England townspeople glared at Hester Prynne.

Sometimes my self-righteousness slips out. Julie was eating her Honey Bunches of Oats cereal this morning.

“How are your empty calories?” I asked.

“Delicious!” she said.

Then she added, “You’re starting to sound like Marti.”

She’s got a point. Last time Marti was over, she told Jasper, who was drinking milk, “That’s baby food. That’s not meant for you, that’s meant for baby cows. Baby food.”

My self-righteousness is only reinforced by evidence that I may, in fact, be in good shape. Or at least in better shape than a major motion-picture action star.

My trainer, Tony, told me that Matt Damon works out at our gym. This is surprising, because it’s not a fancy gym. There are plenty of gyms boasting varnished wooden lockers, coat-check girls, and cafés serving egg-white omelets. The gym I go to has a depressing Eastern European feel.

Tony says that Matt Damon comes into the gym a couple of days a week and works out for about half an hour till he’s sweating and panting.

And here’s the important part: His workout is less strenuous than mine. At least according to Tony, who says, “He wouldn’t be able to do what you do. The jumping lunges alone would get him.”

There’s a chance Tony is saying this to make me feel better. There’s also a chance Matt Damon is training for a role as an out-of-shape character, maybe for a biopic of Meat Loaf.

Still. It’s exciting. I love bringing this information to Julie, who adopted Damon as her celebrity crush a few years ago after deeming Tom Cruise to be a nutter. “You like them apples?” I ask.

Chapter 13

The Teeth

The Quest for the Perfect Smile

I’VE BEEN PUTTING OFF DEALING with my teeth for months. Like four out of five consumers, I fear dentists. I also have empathy for dentists, mind you. It can’t be fun being so loathed, to be the cod liver oil of the health care community.

But still I fear them. Perhaps it’s because I got off to a bad start with tooth care. I had an orthodontist in fifth grade who, in his own way, was as sadistic as Laurence Olivier in Marathon Man. He’d sing me off-key Hebrew songs as I sat there, powerless to protest. He also had a cruel selection of magazines in his waiting room: Instead of Highlights, he had several copies of Antiques magazine so all the eleven-year-olds could marvel at the Townsend cabinets.

But I can’t ignore my mouth forever. Because the annoying truth is, your teeth and gums are closely connected to the cardiovascular system. One study from Emory University found a significantly higher mortality rate—23 to 46 percent higher—among patients who suffered from periodontitis or gingivitis. Mouth bacteria—there are as many as a thousand types of it lurking in the cracks of your teeth—can seep into the blood and cause inflammation and hardening of the arteries.

Clean teeth are linked to a healthy heart. Their connection is why you get the scary—if not quite scientifically rock-solid—estimates that flossing will add 6.4 years to your life.

Right now I’m at a “dental spa.” The Internet listed several and I figured I should try one. I didn’t know what I’d find, but the word “spa” sounded so tranquil, I assumed it had to be an improvement in tooth care.

I thought perhaps it’d be a hushed oasis in midtown New York filled with the sound of bamboo wood chimes, the scent of citrus, and the sight of toned bodies. I’d slip on my complimentary fluffy white bathrobe and fluffy white slippers. I’d ease into a hot tub, maybe get a little seaweed wrap on my face. Then my spa dentist would massage my teeth with a lavender-scented loofah, not the mini-pickaxes used by regular nonspa dentists. Then I’d rinse my mouth with natural springwater from Baden-Baden and leave in a state of joyful repose.

Instead, it turns out, a “dental spa” isn’t too different from a “dental office.”

Oh, they try to gussy it up a bit. There are purple-and-white crystals in the waiting room. A red Buddha figurine. And most spalike of all, I get a complimentary ten-minute foot massage. As I lie back, mouth ajar, with a dental hygienist jamming cotton into my cheeks, a bald