If a person drinks a little, smokes a little, and indulges a little in fatty, high-cholesterol foods, then his liver will become slightly damaged, his lungs will become slightly damaged, and his arteries will become slightly clogged, yet he may still be able to live until age 90.
Another person, who has never smoked and who never eats junk food, but who drinks liquor like a fish day and night, will have pristine lungs and arteries, but will suffer total liver failure and be dead by the age of 45.
The first person can live twice as long as the second person -- even though they were both equally indulgent -- because he utilized his body's full resistance potential by distributing the stress across his entire system, instead of straining one component to the point of breakdown.
Eumalometry is the theory that, to a person who is *prone* to indulge (people without the temptation need not care) -- the best way to do it is to distribute the damage evenly, like building houses in the game "Monopoly".
A eumalometry practitioner will give you a "scorecard" of your bodily organs, e.g.
Liver - 3 Stomach - 1 Arteries - 4 Lungs - 2.
Instead of giving you negative advice or blanket statements such as "eat more fruits and vegetables", s/he will advise you on which vices or indulgences you *can* best afford to enjoy, *should* you feel the unavoidable urge to indulge in something.
Again, the focus is to optimize longevity by distributing the lifetime damage to the body parts in an even manner.-- phundug, Dec 12 2005 What about those chaps in the Urals who live to 120 eating nothing but yoghurt?-- DrCurry, Dec 12 2005 Seeing one western film scores about 5 to the brain, ergo the long life.-- reensure, Dec 12 2005 Anything in moderation eh?-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Dec 12 2005 Everything in moderation... Everything!-- Shz, Dec 12 2005 Including moderation.-- wagster, Dec 12 2005 "No honey, you can't have another chocolate, the doctor said so."
*kid whining*
"Okay, here, smoke the rest of mommy's cigarette then."-- Trickytracks, Dec 12 2005 I thought it said Optical Bodily harm.... evil looks that might cause you to break out in hives or make a tooth fall out +-- xenzag, Dec 12 2005 I kind of like the scorecard approach - even regular doctors may wish to adopt it to make their patients more interested and enthusiastic.-- phundug, Dec 12 2005 Can't help but imagine that the day before the patient's score card time period is up - they realise that they have another 3 liver points to go to get it level with the rest, and should really do their best to use them while it's still healthy to do so.-- fridge duck, Dec 12 2005 random, halfbakery