The low-fat diet is a bust! Now good night, and please pass me those Oreos

ST. PAUL, Minn.--That big low- fat-diet study that was front-page news a week ago has blown over now, and people are back to spreading butter on their bread and still feeling good about themselves. What the study said (in case you've forgotten) is that grandmas who eat fudge sundaes don't face significantly greater risks than grandmas who eat parsnips. For this the government paid $415 million. Meanwhile, the male urinary tract remains a dark mystery, like the upper Amazon or Northwest Passage, and psoriasis breaks the hearts of thousands, and my sinuses are a ticking time bomb. Where is the justice here?

I realize this column is Not About Me, but if Washington has a half-billion dollars to pay researchers to watch post-menopausal women eat Little Debbie Snack Cakes, then why can't someone look up my nose and tell me what is going on? I am in my extremely late 50s and am not in a mood to dawdle.

We are talking about a feeling of congestion and pressure and frequent sinus headaches, even though I take so much antihistamine that I talk in my sleep. I am married to an insomniac, that's how I know. She says I talk about technology stocks and seem to know my stuff.

I also eat in my sleep. I was not intending to go public with this, but after the low-fat headlines, maybe it's time. I woke up one morning and found an empty quart carton of butter brickle ice cream in the bed and brickle stains on my pajamas, and I realized that I must seek help. Also that there might be a book deal here.

Sometimes it is water chestnuts. Sometimes frozen waffles. Chicken nuggets. Pistachios. The list goes on and on. Pimentos. Anchovies. And once I ate a dozen White Castle double cheeseburgers. The empty cartons were under my pillow in the morning, the car keys lay on the floor with the sales slip from the drive-thru, and the car was in the driveway with the door wide open. A binge eater turned sleep driver.

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