Home Detox Improves "Real Age"
by Kristin Underwood, San Diego, CA on 08.21.08
Image source: Getty Images
Here's a fun, little game: Wanna find out what your years of late-night clubbing and social-smoking have done to your health? Yikes, on second thought... Well, the RealAge.com will take you through a series of questions on genetic health risks, exercise and even how happy you are with your s.e.x life - each of which affects what they term your "real age." Your real age is not your birthdate but the idea that how you treat your body may shorten or lengthen your timeline.
Interestingly enough, one of the suggestions they give to improve your "real age" is to detox your home. The list includes roughly 3-5 tips to improve every room in your house, including don't microwave food in plastic containers, use cedar-chips instead of mothballs and use deodorant instead of antiperspirant. Clearly these are things that we have touched on at TreeHugger, but its interesting to note that not only are these things important for the environment, but also that they are recommended to "put years back on your life." Age is so just a number.
Sponsored by Dr. Michael Roizen, and Oprah's favorite thing Dr. Oz, the Real Age test, you can also take a quiz specifically looking at how your home is setup and find out if your house is "toxic." The site also includes sections to improve your mental health, lose weight and where to purchase non-toxic products.
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I just took the Real Age quiz. The results are extremely biased towards and omnivorous diet. I'm vegan and I eat very well balanced, varied meals. The survey told me I wasn't getting enough Omega 3's based on one question regarding whether or not I eat fish. It did not ask me if I ate flax seeds, walnuts, hazelnuts, olive oil, soybeans, coconut oil or okra. Just fish. Since I answered "never" on the how often do you eat dairy products question it immediately jumped to the conclusion that I'm not getting enough calcium. Never mind that one cup of broccoli contains twice as much calcium as a cup of milk. And boy do I love broccoli.
There were some other inconsistencies not diet related.
It's a fun little survey and all...but like everything on the internet don't take it seriously.
@ Kristen
The survey was probably more right than you thought. All of your sources of omega 3 are land-based plants which contain ALA. The important O3s are the long chain EPA and DHA. The body does a poor job of converting ALA to the more useful DHA and EPA (less than 5% is converted). In order to get the benefits of O3, you need DHA and EPA. So, unless you're taking algal O3 supplements, you're not getting the benefit from your O3 that you should. In addition, studies have liked excess ALA intake to prostrate cancer (July 2004 edition of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition). Whole flaxseed doesn't appear to promote cancer, though.
I agree that the survey could be more specific, however.