Revealed: The seven great "medical myths"

reply to post by Quantum_Squirrel


Well though you've mis-used 'semantics' I'll just say that water is water is water, regardless of how you consume it.

Are you saying that if I eat a tablespoon of ground coffee and then drink an 8 oz. bottle of hot water that it's somehow different than drinking 8oz of coffee? (forgetting, for now, the claims about coffee being dehydrating)

OTOH, I agree that one should always take scientific claims with some skepticism. If you find that -for you- drinking extra water is, or feels, beneficial, then it's OK (as long as you don't hyper hydrate).

I'm a big fan of 'researching one's own experience'. I do a lot of journaling and tracking of what I eat and drink and if I see an effect I'll go for it over what someone might say. For instance, in myself, I've never seen a 'dehydrating' effect of taking caffeine in coffee, or in pills.

I seem to experience some dehydration from drinking beer, but it's not clear to me what the mechanism is (does it really block ADH?). Maybe it's just apparent if you drink more than 3-4 glasses?

Again, I'm not here to 'convince' you or anyone. I'm just a fan of trying to use peer-reviewed research in addition to anecdotal reports. As I've said in a previous report, much research is done on rats and may not always be pertinent to humans.

Thanks for your input.

reply to post by Badge01

I seem to experience some dehydration from drinking beer, but it's not clear to me what the mechanism is (does it really block ADH?). Maybe it's just apparent if you drink more than 3-4 glasses?

This is intresting i think this is linked more to age and slower recovery times as you get older ..

how old are you ( if u dont mind answering) within 5 years will do .. ie 20-25, 25-30 etc etc

when i was younger i used to scoff at people who had massive hangovers, or couldn't remember events from the previous night .. but the older you get the worse the hangovers seem and it takes longer to recover.

as your interested in going with peer tested data maybe you could try a little experiment . i have always found the drink a pint of water theory before you go to bed (after consuming large quantaties of alcohol) theory helpful. this would go some ways to adressing your beer point .

Drink an amount of alcohol (u have to get drunk sry ) and no water after. then record the hangover severity.

Then a week later do the same experiment with the water and do the same in the morning and compare.

I know this is crude, try to keep the amounts of alcohol the same etc etc , i know this is not very objective but would be interesting to say the least.
i realise many other factors have to be considered , how tired you are, etc, etc and it is almost impossible to duplicate identical tests to allow the truest result. but hey give it a shot at the worst you will get to fun nights out of it

Heh... they contradict themselves on a few of them right in their own article. Anyway...



* You need to drink 8 glasses of water a day to stay healthy
- Nobody ever said YOU NEED EIGHT 8OZ GLASSES A DAY OR YOU WILL DIE!
The idea is just to stay hydrated. Water intake is a catalyst for just about every biological process our bodies have. You start getting dehydrated and waste elimination through the kidneys and bowel slows, energy levels drop, and you start sounding like a snob when you talk.


* Reading in dim light ruins your eyesight
- Permanent damage? No. Eye strain and possibly headaches? Yup.


* We use only 10 percent of our brains
- No doctor in the past 50 years has claimed this.


* Shaving makes hair grow back faster or coarser
- Like they said... it's the taper that's gone giving the appearance of thicker hair.


* Eating turkey makes you drowsy
- Sensitivity to tryptophan varies based on individual chemistry.


* Hair and fingernails continue to grow after death
- Again, I don't think any serious professionals claim this.


* Mobile phones are dangerous in hospitals
- "Minimal interference" ... I sure don't want that minimal interference with the machine keeping ME alive!


None of these are "medical myths." Some of them are just urban myths if anything. Don't start confusing this crap with some sort of irrational bias against hospitals or modern medicine. You'll always lose.

reply to post by Quantum_Squirrel


Sorry, can't help you on your beer experiment, since I don't drink beer or anything other than a half glass of champagne on New Years' Eve.

The 'hangover' phenomenon is as likely to be related to production of acetaldehyde intoxication, and maybe hypoglycemia as it is to any 'drying' or shrinking of the brain (except, maybe in substantial doses).

I wonder if there might be some symptoms related to potassium deficiency - could eating a banana help? Maybe in some people, but it might be because of the carbs.

Anyway, good discussion. I think we're done.

I believed none of them, knowing them all to be urban myths or variants thereof.

I must confess that I drink a fair amount of water, but this is only because I limit myself to 2 cups of tea per day, and I no longer drink coffee or fizzy drinks, although I do drink fruit juice and fruit smoothies.

The myth about hair and nails continuing to grow after death came about because of one thing - as the blood in the body separates and sinks after death, the skin pulls back and in effect, shrinks, giving the illusion that the hair and nails have grown.

There was a big scandal a while back when it was proved that mobiles are safe to use in hospitals - some hospitals continued to ban their usage so they could make money off the extortionate rate they charge for the pay phones.

Nobody stops people from going outside or to the lobby to make their call. But problems do occur with equipment that also uses radio for some purpose. If you look at a cellphone with a spectrum analyzer you'll not only see the actual channel the phone is using, but a range of frequencies being created either from transmission noise or harmonics. These undesired frequencies are often inconsistent and unpredictable. As such it is possible for a cellular phone to transmit inadvertently on the same frequency a sensitive piece of equipment is using, disrupting operation.

It's the same reason you shouldn't use a cellular phone while an airplane is taking off or landing. During those times the plane is relying heavily on radio avionics and GPS meaning any radio interference must be minimized.

Cellphones are disruptive in a hospital, where people are sick and the disruptiveness of cellphones would probably be a priority to a place where patients need rest.

Water drinking may be different than any other kind of drinking, I think that is probably true. It is also true that drinking around 44 gallons of water will make you drunk.

Hair grows at different rates depending on something I can not figure out, except body chemistry perhaps or cycles of your body. So to me, shaving hair sometimes can seem like the hair is growing back faster, but at other times due to body cycles the hair may take longer to grow back.

Eating turkey may make you tired, or the turkey is more of a game meat that usually is heavier in a sense of eating it. There must be weights to meats and that weight of the density of the meat probably will make some people tired eating the same amount. Perhaps it is more moisture in the meat during the processing of the meat. Probably depends on the cut of the meat and how it is processed.

Anything else I am not sure about, but drinking water also depends on activity level of the person. Now, I am just going to have a cup of coffee lukewarm or cold, because hot coffee does not taste good anymore and usually is too hot to drink. Try a cup of cold coffee.

A better phrase would maybe read as "people only use 10% of the memory in their brains, as opposed to 10% of their brain." 10% of a persons memory seems more plausible than 10% of the physical usage of the brain.

Bull, Turkey makes me sleepy every time and I'm in good shape. Could be from the boring Dallas and Detroit football games too. I have had some turkey make me so sleepy that its not funny and some do hardly anything.
Water is very important and soda, Diet or not kills you slowly. It rots your teeth and stomach and also shrinks your veins.
Reading too much on ATS makes you want to build a Kevlar helmet covered in tin foil, Grab a gun and a shovel. Dig your own bomb shelter under your house and guard your hole with your gun as you forgot to grab your soda and turkey sandwich.

Here's the ultimate medical myth.


"Modern Medicine is Good for You!"


If you know this is false, you're on the big bright road of "being healthy." Weird, right?

Originally posted by Badge01
reply to post by Quantum_Squirrel

 

Are you saying that if I eat a tablespoon of ground coffee and then drink an 8 oz. bottle of hot water that it's somehow different than drinking 8oz of coffee? (forgetting, for now, the claims about coffee being dehydrating)

OTOH, I agree that one should always take scientific claims with some skepticism. If you find that -for you- drinking extra water is, or feels, beneficial, then it's OK (as long as you don't hyper hydrate).

I'm a big fan of 'researching one's own experience'. I do a lot of journaling and tracking of what I eat and drink and if I see an effect I'll go for it over what someone might say. For instance, in myself, I've never seen a 'dehydrating' effect of taking caffeine in coffee, or in pills.

I myself do not stick to 8 glasses a day. I think I consume at most 4. However, I do drink two large cups of coffee a day. So I suppose you can put the count at about 6-ish.

I also drink tea but the amount varies on a daily basis.
I don't drink soft drinks anymore. As for coffee being dehydrating, there is some truth in it for me. Coffee works a mild laxative for me. Ecpecially if I eat fried foods that same day.

Could it just be different body chemistries?

First of all, I'll reply to the original question asked:
The only thing that surprised me is the claim about hair and fingernails continuing to grow after death. I'm reasonably sure that they do... but it's a question of how long they continue. Cellular division continues throughout the entire body for a short time after death... until local nutrients are used up. So if they are saying growth stops immediately after death, I call BS. If they mean it doesn't continue for a week... well, duh!

On the water debate (sorry to drag it up, but it's compelling), everything that goes into you is mixed up in your digestive system. Water is water. When it's in juice or pop, it's not chemically combining with anything (yes, I do have some background in chemistry). Basically all fluids we drink are water suspensions. The water itself is not altered in any way.
HOWEVER:
A large part of the function of water is to help carry waste out of our systems. When you are drinking pop (by example) there are several chemicals in there that your body has absolutely no use for (diet pop being much worse for this) an thus those chemicals need to be flushed out of your system. This requires water to carry it out. Some chemicals (like caffeine) are suspected to trigger the "flush response" more rapidly. From my personal experience, I can say that coffee does make me pee... but it's much more drastic when I've added too much sugar.

For those who don't know, generally the more yellow your urine is, the more chemicals and minerals are being flushed from your system. If you don't pee much, but it's bright yellow (and maybe has a very strong smell) you need to drink more water.

reply to post by Badge01


Great post!!!

Reminds me of what my brother said as a Cyto-tech after his first time being involved in a medical malpractice suit...

"We have a joke at the lab... it's not an exact science."

reply to post by phoenixhasrisin


Yeah, sadly, the experience of working in a large teaching hospital in a variety of positions for many years taught me that the hospital is not a very safe place.

I had three minor surgeries as a youngster and two of them had unfavorable sequelae. The first ended up with a serious staph infection that had 13 outbreaks before they cultured it and gave the right antibiotic. The second, deviated septum (nose), they left the packing in too long. (the doc totally forgot about me for 2.5 days). The third, removal of a cyst from the wrist was without incident.

In addition, my dad went in for kidney surgery and they gave him a double dose of anesthesia, he died, but they resuscitated him.

There's more, but I won't bore you.

Thanks for the kind comments.

Theres always the perfect antidote to every sickness, even if the sickness is made up...

reply to post by West Coast

Yeah...
Death!
Cures everything!


Incedently, right now I'm suffering from a brutal cold.
I felt it coming on and took my steps. Eccanatia drops, my own herbal tea (hibiscus, juniper berry, cinnamon, lemon peal, and a shot of Jack Danial's), took my supplements (vitamins D, C, B, omega 3, Magnesium, Potassium, and a few others). Been eating well, sleeping alright (never a great sleeper), yet blamo. Woke up so sick I couldn't get into work today. Called in sick for the first time in about 5 years.

Sometimes, yer just gonna get sick no matter what you do.

[edit on 21-12-2007 by BitRaiser]

Originally posted by BitRaiser
reply to post by West Coast

 

Yeah...
Death!
Cures everything!

Incedently, right now I'm suffering from a brutal cold.
I felt it coming on and took my steps. Eccanatia drops, my own herbal tea (hibiscus, juniper berry, cinnamon, lemon peal, and a shot of Jack Danial's), took my supplements (vitamins D, C, B, omega 3, Magnesium, Potassium, and a few others). Been eating well, sleeping alright (never a great sleeper), yet blamo. Woke up so sick I couldn't get into work today. Called in sick for the first time in about 5 years.

Sometimes, yer just gonna get sick no matter what you do.

[edit on 21-12-2007 by BitRaiser]

Well played sir! You know, Im not so sure thats not part of the bodies way of getting rid of the trash? I know...as wild as that sounds...its just pure speculation on my part. Sounds like you try to stay healthy. Maybe it was somthing you ate that didnt agree with you?

Ahhh! Another thing that can bring a cold on is the weather. I dont know about you, but where im at, we had a horrible ice storm (one of the worst to come in decades) not even a week ago, today it was sunny and 67 degrees. Fluctuations like that in the weather can cause colds..just some food for though.

[edit on 21-12-2007 by West Coast]

[edit on 21-12-2007 by West Coast]

There's an epidemic of this cold running through where I live. Apparently one school had to close because over 100 kids where sick. I no doubt picked it up from my roommate who has been sneezing his face off all over everything for the last week.

My personal theory is that the reason it's so focused on this area is that there are a lot of construction workers who live here. The weather has been particularly nasty lately. Cold, wet, and fluctuating madly. These construction workers typically don't take very good care of themselves (drugs, drinking, partying) and have been exposed to the foul weather more so than any other group of people. I have a feeling that that set up a perfect storm for cold incubation... they passed it to their kids and to retail workers during the busy Christmas shopping season and presto! You've got yourself an epidemic.

SO... I'm left with indulging in another medical myth. Chicken soup!

As a side note pertaining to my earlier comments about water in-take, drinking lots of fluids is important when you're sick for the reasons I outlined. Your body needs to flush as much of this crap out as possible... so you pee a lot and sweat. Gotta replace that fluid or you get dehydrated. Dehydrated lungs are perfect for getting pneumonia... then yer screwed.

Thus, chicken soup really isn't a myth. High fluid and high nutrient.
Fun times.

reply to post by BitRaiser


Even though I applaud your attitude towards medicine (and I mean applaud :up You were probably a little harsh on the poor old guy. I think "they know not what they do" comes into play a lot of the time, and some others might be "See no evil..."

As far as chicken soup is concerned, It's probably the PH issue that the high sodium addresses, as there's no real beneficial nutrients in chicken soup.

What was that about? Dead flag. You should not send me a U2U when I'm intoxicated because I may take it the wrong way
I am waiting for the government to ban chicken soup for fear of the bird flu. I just hope I don't come across any mad cows because I think they could do some damage.