Popular Myths clash with facts

Will Rogers once said, "It's not what they don't know that's the problem. It's what they know that ain't so."

A new book by Michael Wolff called Where We Stand provides a useful antidote for what we know that ain't so. It was prepared as the official sourcebook for the PBS-TV series Made in America, which aired last week on most PBS stations. Here's a sampling of comparative pathologies, social and otherwise.

Myth: Overweight, sedentary Americans are health disasters waiting to happen.

Reality: That used to be, but Americans are radically changing their lifestyles and eating habits and now fall near the bottom of the risk list.

An example: Among the world's industrialized countries, the percentage of men with at least two out of four risk factors for heart disease (smoking, obesity, high blood pressure and high cholesterol) is highest in the United Kingdom (42.5%) and Finland (41.5%). It's even higher in Germany, France and Switzerland (about 28%) than in the U.S. (18.7%). Also, because the U.S. has the best high-tech cardiac care in the world, you'll live longer in the U.S. if you survive a heart attack (about 16 years) than in any other nation, including Norway (10 plus years) or Japan (about 9 years).

Myth: The U.S. is cancer country and women are the primary victims.

Reality: Europe is the cancer capital of the world, and in every region of the world the incidence of cancer is higher among men than women.

Europeans have the highest incidence of cancer of all kinds and the highest annual rates of cancer-caused deaths. Even though Japan has the highest rate of smoking