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e trust entirely too easily. And it’s damaging our health. Let alone our bank accounts, our children, and our lives.

doveriai, no proveriai {Trust, but verify.}Russian proverb

We are so oblivious to the depth of our trust in things undeserving that the mere thought of questioning them sends us immediately into denial.

To admit our naivety or irresponsibility is unthinkable. We rest in the wisdom of the herd; let the consequences be damned.

We prefer to slide through life and not rock the boat rather than have to deal with the truth.

I hope if you are reading this, you’re a rocker not a roller.

Outside of our family and circle of friends, we trust complete strangers all the way up to companies, organizations, and entire industries.

Our American currency even states, “In God We Trust,” which makes the most sense to me since God is perfect and not flawed by greed, fear, lobbying, ignorance, or convenience. If you are going to put your trust somewhere, God is your best bet.

People, let alone groups of people, are who you have to watch.

Not everyone or everything is trustworthy. In the United States, one is innocent until proven guilty. This idea usually lends itself to one being trustworthy until proven untrustworthy.

There’s just one problem with that.

We are not perfect. We make bad choices. We can easily overlook our employer’s motives and products because they pay our salaries.

Companies are only as honest as their top executive.

So in reality, trust those who have proven trustworthy, but verify the important things.

Medical Studies

Before you trust the next media story or marketing campaign about some medical study that proves that organic cane sugar is healthier than high-fructose corn syrup or saturated fat causes heart disease, check the study’s sponsor.

If it is Willy Wonka or some pharmaceutical company sponsoring a study through a university, don’t you think they are biased?

Do you really feel confident placing your trust in a study that could have easily been created to find what the company wanted to find and nothing else?

I have read plenty of abstracts on these studies that do not quite sum up the research. At all.

One New England Journal of Medicine study found that 24 percent of the studies they researched allowed their sponsor to insert its own statistical analysis!

If you want to do some of your own sleuthing, I wonder who was behind this recent BBC News story on the benefits of coffee? Oh wait, they failed to link to the actual studies mentioned. I wonder why.

Trust at your own risk. Verify what you believe. If the boat needs rocking, don’t be afraid to ask hard questions.

You are the only one in charge of your health.

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