Health IQ: Are you eating ‘risky food’ to save on groceries?

Eating food past the best-before date?

Despite a slowdown in grocery price inflation, a report from Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab reveals that many Canadians are open to eating foods close to or past their best-before dates due to higher grocery prices.

The report, published Thursday, found 58 per cent of respondents said higher prices made them more inclined to eat food close to or past its best-before date. About 37 per cent said their consumption habits haven’t changed.

Among those who said they would potentially eat such foods, 23.1 per cent said they always do so, while 38.6 per cent said they often eat food past its best-before date or are overripe, with a further 30.8 per cent doing the same sometimes. Just 7.5 per cent said they rarely consume food under these conditions.

“So you can tell that food inflation really has push(ed) Canadians to think differently about food,” the lab’s director, Sylvain Charlebois, told Global News. “Not only that, it has pushed Canadians to manage risks, food safety risk at home very differently as well. Food is now an asset and you don’t want to throw it out, if you can utilize it in a way.”

Though Charlebois notes the survey is based on self-reporting, the study found 20 per cent of Canadians claimed they got sick after consuming food close to or past its best-before date.

Read more about whether certain foods can be safely eaten past their best-before dates.

Treatment from female doctors linked to lower mortality rates

A recent study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine suggests that patients, especially women, experience lower mortality and hospital readmission rates when treated by female physicians.

Analyzing data from over 770,000 patients in the United States, the study published Tuesday found that among women treated by female physicians, 8.15 per cent died within 30 days, while 8.38 per cent of those treated by male physicians met the same outcome.

This difference may seem small, but lead author Dr. Yusuke Tsugawa, an associate professor-in-residence of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, said it is “clinically meaningful.”

“If we put this into context, for mortality, for every 420 hospitalizations, one fewer death will occur when female physicians provide care, as opposed to when male physicians treat patients,” he told Global News. “And given that more than four million hospitalizations for medical conditions happen every year in the U.S., this difference is pretty big if you take into account the population level.”

He said the study’s findings indicate that female and male physicians practice medicine differently, and these differences have a meaningful impact on patients’ health outcomes.

Read more about why the researchers believe female physicians might have better patient outcomes compared to their male colleagues.

— THE TOPIC —

Dangers of anti-sunscreen claims

— WHAT EXPERTS ARE SAYING —

Although “influencers” frequently promote the advantages of skincare and sun protection, a worrying trend has surfaced on social media: the rise of the anti-sunscreen messages.

Some social media users dismiss SPF’s importance, claiming it causes harm. Still, experts caution that unprotected sun exposure significantly increases the risk of skin cancer and premature aging.

One TikTok user, Gubba Homestead, posted a video falsely claiming: “There is no proof that sun causes cancer.” Instead, the user claimed that melanoma rates surged following the popularity of sunscreen, attributing the cancer not to the sun itself but to the sunscreen and dietary habits.

“We know 100 per cent the risks of sun exposure without sunscreen. It’s like we know smoking causes cancer,” explained Sherry Torkos, an Ontario-based pharmacist and health author. “We know that unprotected sun exposure causes premature aging, wrinkling and increased risk of skin cancer, especially if you get a bad burn.”

More than 80,000 cases of skin cancer are diagnosed in Canada each year and more than 5,000 of these are melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, the Canadian Skin Cancer Foundation says.

A 2020 study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal reported that 80 per cent to 90 per cent of all skin cancer diagnoses are associated with UV radiation. But “high-quality evidence” has shown that sunscreen reduces the risk of developing both melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancer, the study states.

While the importance of sunscreen cannot be overstated, Torkos emphasizes that getting vitamin D is also crucial.

Torkos called this a “balancing act.” She said if you want to get a blast of sunlight, make sure to do it in short intervals, especially on hot days, and try to stay out of the sun during peak hours, between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.