I enjoy highlighting and re-publishing stories about scientific validation of the Word of Wisdom, the official health code of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They show that not only is our Heavenly Father, who went through his own mortal probation, smarter than the rest of us, but that Joseph Smith, who revealed the Word of Wisdom to the world, was truly a Prophet, Seer, and Revelator, notwithstanding his human weaknesses and imperfections.
The Daily Mail and Newsmax Health reveal the completion of a Swedish study which indicates that women who smoke incur an elevated risk of arthritis. The study, carried out by Karolinska Institute in Stockholm (choose from the Swedish-language version or the English-language version), analyzed 34,101 women aged between 54 and 89; of those, 219 suffered with the condition.
Findings: The study found that women who smoked between one and seven cigarettes daily were more than twice as likely to develop the disease as those who had never smoked. It also found that women remained twice as likely to develop the disease even 15 years after giving up smoking. Data also showed that the risk of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) increased with the length of time the woman had been smoking; for example, smoking for 25 years raised the risk 1.6 times compared with smoking for just one year. The Karolinska Institute published their own summary of the findings, which indicates that they've also been published in the science journal Arthritis Research & Therapy.
On the other hand, the Daily Mail reports in the same article that the Karolinska Institute also discovered that drinking five or more glasses of wine or beer a week can halve a person’s chance of developing RA. But this should not be interpreted as invalidating the Word of Wisdom proscription against drinking alcohol, since alcohol contributes disproportionately to so many other problems. Instead, it merely indicates that there is a specific benefit to alcohol within this particular context, and the idea is to isolate and market that specific beneficial aspect rather than denigrate the Word of Wisdom. Section 89, verses 5-7 of the Doctrine & Covenants still states "That inasmuch as any man drinketh wine or strong drink among you, behold it is not good, neither meet in the sight of your Father, only in assembling yourselves together to offer up your sacraments before him. And, behold, this should be wine, yea, pure wine of the grape of the vine, of your own make. And, again, strong drinks are not for the belly, but for the washing of your bodies"; Joseph Smith's successors, in accordance with the principle of continuing revelation, have further restricted alcohol consumption, removing it as a Sacramental emblem. The Doctrine & Covenants Student Manual also provides more background on the interpretation and history of the Word of Wisdom.
You can read all posts on this blog about scientific validation of the Word of Wisdom at this link.
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