Having a pint in Doolin, Chablis with red chilli and soured cream and onion crisps, and earthlings' fascination with pill-popping all featured in year one of the HealthSupplement
Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving in an attractive and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, champagne in one hand, strawberries in the other, body thoroughly worn out and screaming 'Woo hoo - what a ride!'
- A hedonsitic life motto from a female reader, as suggested to Dr Muiris Houston.
Blame Carol Vorderman. One minute she was on Countdown with flat brown hair, a pleasantly plump figure and clothes a maths teacher would be proud of - the next, she had become a red carpet celeb with a figure to die for, a sparkly new wardrobe and the energy levels of a Duracell bunny.
- Bernice Harrison holds Carol Vordeman responsible for the popularity of detoxing.
The most amazing thing to me is when people have lost their health and their first question is - 'will I have a heart by-pass or a stent? Chemo or radiotherapy?' Then they'll tell you afterwards: 'I'm walking five miles a day since the by-pass' and I'm thinking 'pity you didn't walk even one bloody mile before it'.
- Prof Patrick Wall on Irish attitudes to health and exercise.
I've seen childbirth and I'd rather have a vasectomy, in fact I'd rather have 10 vasectomies.
- Broadcaster Seán Moncrieff shares his views on getting the snip versus having babies.
A friend of mine who works as a chef was telling me she was doing Pilates and I thought that meant she was making some new kind of dessert or something.
- Jason Byrne tells Patricia Weston why he's not an exercise junkie.
I bought a pedometer while I was in America which counts each step you take. I bought one for all the managers in the shops too, so everyone in the company must walk at least five miles a day and then declare it to me each day.
- Supermarket executive Feargal Quinn on making his workers walk for their wages.
What's the difference between God and a consultant? God doesn't think he's a consultant. A fashionable surgeon is like a pelican; he can be recognised by the size of his bill.
- Dr Muiris Houston gives some examples of medical humour.
How to Survive and Build that Raft by 'Imina Hurrie'.
- Irish Hospital Consultants' Association president Colm Quigley's choice of book to bring to a desert island.
The fact that you, and more people like you, go home in the evening and open a bottle of white wine is the trigger for cunning potato crisp manufacturers to repackage those little slices of fat-dripped spud, stamp a resplendent picture of fresh food on the outside of the packet and invite you to down the Chablis with red chilli and soured cream and onion crisps, replete with that sun-drenched image your white wine demands. For you, the evening's first glass is a reward for commuting, but for the snack industry, your wine glass is a battleground.
- Haydn Shaughnessy on consumers being targeted by the snack industry.
What figure from the world of medicine/health do you most admire?
Prof Patrick Wall, the former Food Safety Authority chief. Patrick did for food safety what Michael Flatley did for Irish dancing.
- That's admiration - from Safefood food safety promotion board's chief executive Martin Higgins.
Do you use alternative medicine/therapies?
No thanks. A badly-educated quack with an open mind is always preferable to an uneducated quack whose mind is firmly closed.
- Dr Maurice Guéret has no time for alternative medicine.
When the Klingons finally invade Earth, they'll waste the first decade trying to figure out why homo sapiens could not function without pills.
The gastronomically-gifted Klingon will hold up these little poppers and even with X-ray eyes fail to see the attraction. The scale of medication in Western society through medicine and supplements and the scale of resources given over to its dubious research and manufacture will then be held up to ridicule.
- Society's preoccupation with pill-popping will be of fascination to alien invaders, predicts Haydn Shaughnessy.
A lady walked into a chemist and spoke to the pharmacist. She asked, "Do you have Viagra?" "Yes," he answered. She asked, "Does it work?" "Yes," he answered. "Can you get it over the counter?" she asked. "I can if I take two," said the pharmacist - reportedly without a hint of embarrassment!
- Dr Muiris Houston on over the counter availability of Viagra.
Have you a fail-safe method of dealing with stress?
Where possible, walking in the Burren, followed by at least one pint and a chat with my old friends in Doolin, to whom the concept of stress is just that, a concept.
- Frank Russell, co-founder of Lakelands Area Retreat and Cancer Centre, deconceptualises stress.
My diet is absolutely appalling. I'm greedy and I stuff myself to the astonishment of others. I can easily sit down to 14 courses! I will enjoy my food. It's difficult to be disciplined especially when you're on your own and have so many meetings and receptions to attend with meals involved. I'm a glutton.
- Senator David Norris fails in his attempts at a balanced diet.
Working in the inner city is like working in the most super-concentrated TV soap (with several incidents, relationship dilemmas, moral issues and sexual conundrums per episode) with a hotch potch of comedians thrown in to ensure it is not too boring.
- Dr Austin O'Carroll on what makes him laugh.
I dread being late for meetings and my greatest fear would be that some day my native county, Roscommon, would lose a championship match to their neighbours, Leitrim.
- Irish Pharmaceutical Union secretary general Seamus Feely on his greatest fears.