What’s scarier than mad cow disease? Nothing, really—except illnesses that are 10 billion times more likely to hurt you. Think about it this way: Your risk of getting mad cow is much lower than your odds of winning the Powerball lottery. In short, it’s not likely to happen. What could happen? In her lifetime, the average woman has a 1 in 2 chance of developing osteoporosis and a 1 in 3 chance of heart disease.
“We’re afraid of the new, the mysterious,” says Marc Siegel, MD, a clinical associate professor of medicine at New York University Medical School who wrote False Alarm: The Truth about the Epidemic of Fear. “But we’re afraid of the wrong things.”
Want to put your fears in their place? Here’s help: We compared your risks of developing certain illnesses this year to the odds of some quirky scenarios—and found plenty of good news. Keep in mind, too, that if you take certain measures (you know, exercise, eat right), you’ll change your odds … for a lifetime.
Read More
“Heart problems? Me?” If that’s your reaction when you hear healthy-heart messages, here’s a wake-up call: The fact is, 
