Unhealthy Obsessions.(Cover Story)

Byline: DEYO is professor of medicine at the University of Washington and author, with Donald Patrick, of "Hope or Hype: The Obsession With Health Advances and the High Cost of False Promises."

Estrogen makes you younger. That was the message postmenopausal women heard from scientists in the early '90s, when studies suggested that estrogen treatment delays the onset of Alzheimer's, prevents heart disease and reverses incontinence. You can imagine their disappointment a decade later when the medical establishment seemed to have reversed its position entirely. The pattern

is familiar. A few years ago, low-fat diets were in. Now fat doesn't seem to matter much. One day doctors were telling us to tabulate milligrams of calcium and vitamin D in our pills, and how many we'd have to ingest each day to prevent osteoporosis. Now calcium barely makes a difference--and causes agonizing kidney stones, to boot. In 2003, Vioxx let your arthritis-stricken knees dance with the stars. But in 2004, it put you in intensive care with a heart attack.

These mixed messages can be confusing to everybody. But they have a special effect on Americans, who seem uniquely willing to change their lifestyles according to the latest health study. An international survey conducted by the European Union and the U.S. National Science Foundation found that two thirds of Americans were "very interested in news about medical discoveries" compared with 44 percent of Europeans. Among seniors, the difference was even more striking: 79 percent of Americans were "very interested," versus only 42 percent of Europeans. A third of Americans thought that modern medicine could "cure almost any illness for people who have access to the most advanced technology and treatment." Germans, by contrast, had an iron grip on reality: only 11 percent had such faith in medicine.

This exaggerated belief in science has historical roots. American settlers believed that technological progress would turn the New World into utopia. Today, Americans seek technological fixes for problems that might once have been the province of a priest, bartender or grandmother. They think it's only a matter of time before medicine cures obesity, menopause, baldness, rowdiness, shyness, sexual dysfunction, cancer, aging and even death. In 1999, William ...