"Today the NY Times paid a visit to the Great Indiana State Fair, where a reporter discovered the heartening news that unhealthy food fried in oil that doesn't contain trans-fats still tastes good! Thank God. People can go on being fat, and their arteries will be a little less clogged! "Yes, Deep-Fried Oreos, but Not in Trans Fats," reads the headline. There's just one little thing, though: Oreos themselves contain trans-fats.

According to the Kraft website:

A serving of our regular Oreo cookies -- which is three cookies -- contains 7 grams of fat, 1.5 of which is saturated fat, and 2.5 of which is trans fat.

A comparable serving of our reduced fat Oreo cookies contains 3.5 grams of fat, including 1 gram of saturated fat and 1 gram of trans fat.    "

Absolutely everything is bad for you, believe me: reading, jogging, laughing, stone-fronted terraced houses, foreign phrase books - you name it: it's dangerous.

Spring is the peak time for suicides in the U.S. People born in the spring live four to seven months less than people born in the fall, and late spring is the high season for strokes. Again, if you take this stuff seriously you probably would want to stay in bed with the covers over your head, except that bed rest is bad for you and the covers are full of dust mites.

French scientists have shown that taking antioxidant supplements, which include vitamins C and E and beta carotene, may increase a woman's risk of skin cancer by 68 percent.  The risk of melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer, was four times greater for women taking the antioxidant supplements.

SO NOW YOU KNOW!  YOU ARE GOING TO DIE!  RUN AWAY NOW!  HIDE YOUR HEAD!  PRETEND EVERYTHING IS FINE!  BUT REMEMBER YOU ARE DYING EVEN AS YOU READ THIS!

Just do the math. A quick check of the World Health Organization's web site shows that the global mortality rate is a chilling 100%. Life itself is killing us all, and nobody knows for sure how to stop it.

At first researchers tried to explain the odd result as the consequence of vitamin misuse. Doctors have long known the dangers of patients taking too much when it comes to dietary supplements, but the raw data seems to suggest that mega-dosing was not a significant factor in the study. In fact, the control group taking only placebos suffered the same ill effects.

According to the study's conclusions, it isn't a matter of "too much of a good thing" but rather "any of anything."

"The medical community must recognize existence as a life-threatening condition," said lead researcher Dr. Niles Ist. "From what we can tell, mortality is a lot like a Chinese finger trap. The more you struggle, the worse it gets. The harder you try to live a long and healthy life, the sooner you will die. In an odd way, it's all very comforting."

So, what should we eat? When asked, Ist offered the standard reply that there are no easy answers. Then we informed him that we weren't leaving his office until he gave us one. Without missing a beat, he went off on a lecture about the benefits of moderate exercise and a healthy diet- to which we retorted with a few vigorous slaps to the face and a high-speed chase around his desk. Finally, barricaded behind an upturned couch with the muzzle of a Desert Eagle pressed to his forehead, he gave us our answer.

"I like to use this rule of thumb," said Ist, panting and clutching his chest. "If you enjoy it, it's probably going to kill you. I suppose even if you don't, it will probably kill you, too."

It turns out that your mother was right (if your mother happened to be an angsty beat poet): you are what you eat, and what you are is entropy.

The study's conclusions will no doubt set the scientific and medical fields on their respective ears and could result in a new and more enlightened approach to healthcare. Decades of expensive treatment and medications could be replaced with a fistful of painkillers and a spot of floor to curl up and die on, potentially saving billions of dollars every year. Everybody wins except the people who are dying, which is everybody.

"Think of it this way," said Ist. "What doesn't kill you, will still end up killing you- just a bit slower and more painfully."