It's been a while since I last posted--holiday parties, you know, and the stupor that usually follows. But some news that's being widely reported today jolted me right out of that. Newspapers everywhere are saying that doing housework can reduce a woman's chance of breast cancer more than playing sports or jogging or whatever. Housework! If you could see me now, you'd know I was spluttering.

What really gets me is that none of the articles I read looked beyond the basics to ask whether the study might be flawed in some way. Only one pointed out that the number of women who were doing job-related activities might have been too low to show a decrease in breast cancer risk. I know being retro is in right now, but surely this kind of study should raise at least some eyebrows--and some hard-hitting questions about the methodology?

Call me paranoid, but this sounds to me like an awfully convenient study for men: "I would mop the floor, honey, but you know how you need it for your health." Please!

The researchers are speculating that the moderate level of activity doing housework could be more useful than the bursts women experience with more vigorous exercise. Apparently, the women who showed this benefit did at least 16-17 hours a week of housework.

Well, that probably explains it then: the poor things were probably so busy cooking and cleaning that they never got a chance to go out and drink alcohol, eat unhealthy or skip going to the gym because that new Daniel Craig movie opened and they just had to see it. Seems to me that being a hardworking housewife may go along with some other good habits that just might explain the extra benefit.