More Medical Myths
More myths about the human body that you've always heard, and probably believe.
Filed under Alternative Medicine, Consumer Ripoffs
| Skeptoid #174 October 06, 2009 Podcast transcript | Listen | Subscribe |
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Once before we looked at medical myths perpetuated by movies and pop culture, but the sheer volume of misinformation can hardly be contained within a single episode. So today we're going to pick it up again, and look at some more stories about the human body that you've always heard and probably believe.
We'll begin with the age-old advice that you should drink at least eight glasses of water a day, or about two liters. If you're backpacking or bicycle racing, that's not really all that much. But for most people, who, like me, sit around watching TV and scratching their belly, this would merely lead to superfluous trips to the bathroom. The problem is that the advice is not only unsupported, it's also misrepresented. The original recommendation seems to come from the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Research Council, which, way back in 1945, said that you should do this. But what seems to have been forgotten is that the report added "Most of this quantity is contained in prepared foods." Omit that, and it appears that you're supposed to stand at the sink and fill your glass eight times a day; which, it turns out, nobody ever recommended in the first place. Whatever you drink normally, in the form of coffee, juice, soft drinks, whatever, probably satisfies most people's water requirements. The evidence for this is that we don't see suited businesspeople laying around on the sidewalks of New York City dying of thirst, stretching out their hands in appeal to passersby.
Just don't take this advice to the extreme. My dad and some friends once came home from college in the UK by buying a boat and sailing across the Atlantic, and they needed to stock up on drinking water. But they reasoned that any liquid was just as good, so they bought a couple kegs of wine instead of water. The wine quickly spoiled in the tropical doldrums and had to be discarded, leaving them stranded in the middle of the Atlantic with nothing to drink, and by the time they reached the New World they were practically dead. Moderation in all things is always better than complete reliance on anything.
Dying from thirst is just one thing that can be frightening. They say Marie Antoinette's and Sir Thomas More's hair turned white from terror the nights before they were executed. It also happened in Shakespeare, and it even happened to Jobeth Williams in Poltergeist, giving her some Cruella de Ville streaks of white overnight. Can a terrible shock turn your hair white? More to the point, can anything make existing hair strands change color? Discounting artificial coloring or sun bleaching, the answer is no. Hair is dead tissue, there is no metabolism or mechanism that could alter its pigmentation and change its color, no matter how big of a shock you receive. However there is a condition called alopecia areata, in which all your pigmented hair falls out, sometimes quite rapidly, leaving only any unpigmented hair you might have. On a person with salt and pepper hair, this could indeed have the apparent effect of turning your hair white overnight. But although the causes of alopecia areata are unknown (though it's suspected to be an immune disorder), attempts to link it to stressful events have been post-hoc rationalizations, and there is no good evidence that it can be caused by fright or stress.
But what about new hair growth? Can some frightening event change something in your body that changes the color of your new hair? People often talk about stressful relationships or projects giving them gray hairs; does this actually happen? Not really, no. The color of your hair, and the age at which it goes gray, is determined by your genes. However, the process is not completely uninterruptible. Certain chemotherapies and certain diseases can temporarily change the color of your new hair growth, but your color will return to normal after the episode. Ionizing radiation has been shown to bring on premature graying in mice due to genetic damage. But so far, no good evidence supports the idea that a sudden fright, or even years of stressful living, can prematurely cause your hair to start growing gray or white, or cause hair loss.
And what man wants to be bald or gray when he's trying to pick up women? We've all heard that men think about sex every eight seconds. Or seven seconds, or nine seconds, or whatever the number. They think about it a lot. And if you're a man, you've probably heard this, felt ashamed and less of a man, and concluded you need to get your game on and think about sex a lot more often just to keep up with your peers. This is the kind of thing that sounds like it must have come out of some study done in the 1970's. The fact is nobody's really sure where or how this claim got started. Researching the question usually yields the same source: A study published in 1994, The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States. They conducted a large survey, and although the results depended on self-reported data by men, they found that 54% of men think about sex at least once a day, 43% at least once a month, and 4% less than once a month. Hundreds of times a day does not seem to be supported by any real data. So relax, your hormones are probably OK.
So since you're not obligated to think about sex all day long, you'll need to find some other way to get knocked out. In movies it's really easy to knock someone out. If you're Bones McCoy, a couple quick karate chops to the shoulder and abdomen will do it; for anyone else, a solid punch or a sharp crack to the back of the head with a pistol will instantly drop your adversary to dreamland. 20 minutes later, they come to, perhaps feeling a bit bruised, but otherwise uninjured. Do people really have such an easily accessed and inconsequential on/off switch?
The actual injury needed to knock someone out is called a mild traumatic brain injury, or MTBI, more commonly called a concussion. Concussions are not caused simply by any blow to the head, though such a trauma can certainly cause other injuries. Concussions are produced by rapid brain acceleration, deceleration or rotation, anything that rapidly gives your brain a good squish. Grade I and Grade II concussions produce confusion and/or amnesia for up to 24 hours, but it takes a Grade III concussion to actually lose consciousness, and this rarely lasts more than five minutes. Symptoms sure to follow include headache, dizziness, confusion, nausea, slurred speech, lack of reasoning ability, amnesia and disorientation. In most patients, the symptoms resolve themselves within a matter of weeks. Rarely, surgery may be needed to relieve pressure or fix an intracranial hemhorrage. So if you're looking for that quick on/off switch for your movie plot, you need to invent your own imaginary clinical reactions.
But once you're unconscious, won't you get fat if you've recently eaten? Sumo wrestlers famously maintain their large bulk by napping after their meals. The idea is that food you eat before sleeping doesn't get as thoroughly metabolized as food you digest while being active, and so if you want to get fat, shift your meals toward bedtime. Lots of people try to avoid eating after dinnertime to stay skinny, but does this really do any good? Sadly for those looking for easy answers to the weight gain problem, this particular solution has been studied a lot, and found to be just another myth. There's certainly a correlation between people who eat late at night and obesity, but this is simply because people who eat at night are more likely to be those who overeat throughout the day. Similarly, those who skip breakfast are more likely to be those who power away too big of a lunch. Turns out it doesn't matter when you eat your calories, it just matters how many calories you eat in total. People who eat small meals spaced throughout the day are less likely to overeat at any given meal. So relax and don't shy away from that late-night snack, just be aware during your other meals that more calories are coming later.
But while you're snacking in bed, is it safe to pick up a book? Mom always used to warn me "Don't read in the dark, you'll ruin your eyes." And so, like most people, I've tried to avoid this. But then an opthalmologist friend assured me "You can't hurt your eyes by using them." Which do you trust, medical science or Mom wisdom? Can reading in dim light damage your visual acuity? There are two lines of evidence that support this: First, that using your eyes in difficult conditions can cause discomfort in the form of eye strain. That's a fact. Second, that smart people tend to wear glasses, presumably meaning that people who read a lot to achieve academic stature damaged their eyes in the process. That one? Not so much of a fact. Again, there may be an actual correlation: People who need to read a lot in their profession may be more likely to have gotten glasses to facilitate their reading, but there's no good evidence that one causes the other. Eye strain is not cumulative, and once you stop reading, the strain goes away and your eyes return to normal. It should be noted, however, that when you research this, you will find articles that do support the claim. But they are very much in the minority. It doesn't make them wrong, it just means that the experimental data has led the majority consensus of researchers to the opposite conclusion.
I say take your snack to bed with you, and read in the dark. If thinking about sex doesn't put you to sleep, a few sudden well-placed brain decelerations from smacking your head on the wall should do the trick. If it doesn't, then you should have known better than to listen to me or to anyone else. Always think for yourself, and never blindly accept what pop culture tells you.
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© 2009 Skeptoid Media, Inc. Copyright information
References & Further Reading
Hofmekler, Ori. "Diet Fallacy #3. Eating late will make you fat." DragonDoor.com For supreme fitness and well being. DragonDoor.com, 12 May 2005. Web. 9 Jan. 2010. <http://www.dragondoor.com/articler/mode3/318/>
Jelinek, J. E. "Sudden whitening of the hair." Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine. 1 Sep. 1972, Volume 48 Number 8: 1003-1013.
Kim, Ben. "Why Drinking Too Much Water Is Dangerous." Dr. Ben Kim's Blog. Dr. Ben Kim, 31 Mar. 2009. Web. 9 Jan. 2010. <http://drbenkim.com/drink-too-much-water-dangerous.html>
Laumann, Edward O., Gagnon, John H., Michael, Robert T., Michaels, Stuart. The social organization of sexuality: sexual practices in the United States. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994.
Levy, Janey. Alopecia Areata. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, 2007.
Pearce, J.M.S. "Observations on Concussion." European Neurology. 1 Feb. 2008, Volume 59 Number 3-4: 113-119.
Ropper, Allan H., Gorson, Kenneth C. "Concussion." The New England Journal of Medicine. 11 Jan. 2007, Volume 356 Number 2: 166-172.
Reference this article:
Dunning, Brian.
"More Medical Myths." Skeptoid Podcast. Skeptoid Media, Inc.,
6 Oct 2009. Web.
6 Sep 2010. <http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4174>
Discuss!
Remember, you should always read with skepticism the comments of anyone too lame to put their real name & city.
Awesome post. I much prefer these over ones where you debunk some fabled supernatural event that happened 200 years ago that I've never heard of.
Ben, Houston, tX
October 06, 2009 8:10am
Everything I know about concussions I learned from watching hockey. Movie knockouts are simply lazy screenwriting.
H. Tiberius Miser, Secret Underground Lair, Earth
October 06, 2009 8:18am
It bugged me more than it should that Mr. Dunning repeated the popular trope about moderation being key. To start with, it wouldn't have even been an ideal solution for his anecdote, as a moderate amount of wine would still have mostly gone bad in the heat. They would have been less thirsty but still have wasted money and space relative to bringing little or no wine.
My real beef with it is that I usually hear it being used to make lazy equivalences between true and false claims. You should pursue moderation between allopathic and homeopathic medicine, Western medicine and spiritual healing, skepticism and credulity, etc.
The saying "moderation in all things" sounds like a cautious, conservative (not in the political sense) motto, but really it implies that you shouldn't rely on proven solutions and that you should devote some time and money to every half-baked idea that you're presented with.
Simon, Seattle
October 06, 2009 8:43am
I've been wondering if the advise to run/walk 15 minutes before eating is just as bogus
Robert Mcbride, Columbia, MD
October 06, 2009 10:17am
A recent study out of Northwestern University suggest that "when" you eat may have an impact on weight gain. I just happened to have heard this this morning on CBC's Quirks and Quarks podcast.
The details can be found here:
http://www.nature.com/oby/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/oby2009264a.html
C. Godeke, Montreal, QC
October 06, 2009 11:19am
I heard that on Quirks & Quarks too. http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/archives/09-10/qq-2009-09-26.html
Mr. Dunning, I enjoy your show very much. But I feel it is equally wrong to conclude that "when" you eat doesn't matter without controlled studies to support your view.
Thanks for bringing up the topics anyway.
adora, Brampton, Ontario
October 06, 2009 11:30am
I've read a large number of articles on precisely why the time and pacing of your meals affects your metabolism, and those articles cited what appeared to be credible studies.
Also, in both independant and casual research and in my academic studies on nutrition (physiology and kineseology courses), I've been told by my professors that there is unquivocably more to being fat or lean than net caloric intake. That said, your view is very similar to what I've read and heard from people who are a decade or two behind the times, so maybe your sources are just out of date.
While I'm not accusing you of talking out of your ass, I would like to see where you get your information from, since you're making an argument that runs contrary to what I've been told by credible and current scientific sources.
Simon, Vancouver
October 06, 2009 11:58am
Not drink 8 glasses of water a day!?! Way to take a stand against Big Hydro!
Morgan, Tracy, CA
October 06, 2009 7:17pm
Actually I do think about it hundreds of times a day...
Not Brad, Not Tokyo
October 06, 2009 8:32pm
"Whatever you drink normally, in the form of coffee, juice, soft drinks, whatever, probably satisfies most people's water requirements. The evidence for this is that we don't see suited businesspeople laying around on the sidewalks of New York City dying of thirst, stretching out their hands in appeal to passersby."
Great line of argument. We don't see smokers lying around on the sidewalks of New York City gasping for breath, so smoking isn't harmful. We don't see obese people lying around on the sidewalks dying of heart attacks, so obesity isn't harmful.
Max, Boston, MA
October 06, 2009 9:03pm
The only reason not to eat before bed is that you're less active. Saying that quite a lot of people "exercise" in bed.
pete, London
October 07, 2009 6:30am
I was surprised that your discussion of knockouts didn’t include a mention of the reticular activating system. A hard punch that twists the head to the right or left can disrupt the signals from the RAS, causing a loss of consciousness. Lots of highlight reels for MMA competitors showcase knockouts of this nature, since they look particularly good in slow-mo.
Meg, Austin, TX
October 07, 2009 7:18am
Max:
Smoking and obesity kill you gradually over many years (for most people, that is). Dehydration kills you quickly over just a few days (for everyone).
Jim Shaver, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
October 07, 2009 8:30am
"But then an opthalmologist friend assured me 'You can't hurt your eyes by using them.'"
Fine, look at the sun then.
"Eye strain is not cumulative, and once you stop reading, the strain goes away and your eyes return to normal."
Are you willing to bet your and your children's eyesight on it?
You know what WON'T damage your visual acuity? NOT reading in dim light!
"So relax and don't shy away from that late-night snack"
Especially if you get heartburn!
"I say take your snack to bed with you, and read in the dark."
And I say heed Daniel Loxton's advice to be cautious outside your area of domain expertise, and don't give out medical advice when you have no medical training.
Max, Boston, MA
October 07, 2009 8:37am
I think the jury is still out regarding late night food intake and weight gain. It's becoming clearer that weight gain is not as simple as "calories in, calories out. In fact, timing of food intake may play a larger role than previously thought. A recent paper published in the journal Obesity has looked into the role of the circadian phase of food consumption in weight gain and the authors found that mice who were fed a high fat diet during the time when they should be sleeping, tended to gain more weight than mice fed the same diet during normal wake periods. Granted, this study was done in mice and not human, but there's no reason to think that the same couldn't be applied to humans as well.
Roger, New York, NY
October 07, 2009 10:09am
This may be comparing apples and oranges but my blood sugar comes down to "normal" levels if I wait 2 hours before metering my blood. From a layperson's point of view going to bed with a high blood sugar seems like a good way to gain weight (or more than you would if the last meal were earlier).
Robert Mcbride, Columbia, MD
October 07, 2009 10:18am
Jim, chronic dehydration doesn't kill you quickly, but does cause kidney stones. Incidence of kidney stones increases in hot climates.
Max, Boston, MA
October 07, 2009 11:03am
I probably do drink 8 glasses of water a day at least in addition to what I get in prepared food. That's why I keep a few books in the bathroom.
As to concussions, I've had a few but the last one was the worst, about a decade ago. It was the only time I've ever been actually knocked unconcious and I don't even remember exactly how it happened (I took a fall off a porch railing at work). I've never completely recovered from it - the most obvious symptom is memory problems specifically involving names.
Robert Jase, New Britain, CT
October 08, 2009 8:31am
Just like to refer you to a study spoken about on Quirks and Quarks podcast last week about night time eating and weight gain.
http://www.cbc.ca/podcasting/includes/quirks.xml
David, Toronto
October 08, 2009 7:00pm
"If you're Bones McCoy, a couple quick karate chops to the shoulder and abdomen will do it"
Holy Cultural Illiteracy Batman! Talked out of our asses on that one didn't we? That ranks right up there with the one where you claimed to overdose on marijuana!
Cogitator X, Pittsburgh
October 09, 2009 11:55am
Perhaps "overdose" was a poor choice of words but I've seen enough people react poorly to smoking a ton of weed, as well as having more than enough personal bad experiences, to disagree with your dismissal of Dunning's "overdose".
Simon, Seattle
October 09, 2009 9:29pm
Alright, then, try this. Don't eat anything all day, then eat your entire 2,000 (or whatever your diet is) calories right before you sleep for eight hours. After you see what happens there, maybe you'll realize that hyperbole does your points some disservice.
Jeff, Colorado, USA
October 11, 2009 1:30pm
I just wanted to say well done, you seem to get a lot of cranks posting comments, I thought you might appreciate a rationalist voice.
Jeff from Colorado:
That's not how science works. You need to carefully control the studies you do because sometimes reality is counter-intuitive.
The body still burns calories while it is sleeping, less than when we are awake but still some calories are burnt. The rest will be stored, mostly as fat. However because you would not have eaten during the day the body would have reduced the amount of energy (fat) in storage, the real issue is calories in v calories out.
The amount of calories absorbed from food can differ between people as can the amount of calories burned for the same amount of activity, this can cause confusion and so the studies you do need to be carefully controlled and randomised. Eating that much before bed can cause reflux and may not cause you to feel full for a long enough period of time to make up for the large amount of calories consumed.
Anthony Tortorici, Wollongong, Australia
October 11, 2009 7:27pm
Brian, I think you should do a podcast debunking some of the questionable advertisments Google chooses to place on your skeptical website! Numerology! 1 Rule for a Flat Belly! California Psychics!
Jess, Phx, AZ
October 12, 2009 3:29am
I haven't been able to find the full study on the mice and feeding time that has been mentioned in the comments. Still, I would be willing to bet that at least part of the diet was administered ad libitum. This could account for the weight gain, due not to timing of feeding but a change in feeding habits from altered circadian rhythm.
Steve Loeffelholz, LeClaire, IA
October 13, 2009 12:00am
Thanx Brian, thinking of sex doesn't work does it??? I mean with who?...But then thinking of some of the royals would make you beg to sleep and wish you hadnt...Then there was Star Wars Ronnie, The Iron lady... sheesh
Henk van der Gaast, Sydney, Australia
October 13, 2009 4:57am
Recommendations like consuming half a gallon of water per day are based on averages, so use feedback and common sense. If your urine is dark, you're not getting enough water. Anything that gives you bloodshot eyes is probably bad for you. Ignore your body's signals only if you know they're messed up, like if you're hungry even after eating too much.
Max, Boston, MA
October 13, 2009 6:08am
I kind of figured that there wouldn't be any permanent damage from reading in dim light, but what about using a computer monitor all day? I've heard it compared to "staring into a light bulb for hours on end" but a quick Google search seems to indicate the eye strain is temporary.
Paul, Secaucus, NJ
October 13, 2009 9:24pm
As a teenager in the 80's, the South African Govt told the world that it had withdrawn the last of its troups from Angola. My boyfriend was in Angola fighting for the SA Army until 13months after they were supposed to have all left.
The moral of this story...
Nothing is exactly as the authorities state it is and don't believe everything you read or hear...
Govt statements are generally bashed out in a committee prior to announcement and everyone knows that a committee usually delivers a solution that looks good but is frequently unworkable...
Or just in agreement with the chairman, however stupid or misinformed he/she is.
Basically, if Mums say their children were normal, had a vaccine and then were immediately abnormal, and the official statement denies it due to lack of scientific evidence - I believe the mums. they know their children the best and experience them daily.
Realist, Syd
October 14, 2009 3:17am
2 brilliantly conflicting articles fom the BBC.. One from 2003 http://bit.ly/ogjEY saying it doesn't matter when you eat, and one from Sept 2009 http://bit.ly/3axfC5 saying it does.. Without looking at the studies, it's difficult to tell which is better, but the 1st one does seem to have a small sample size..
Edward B, London, UK
October 14, 2009 6:15am
I found a study regarding late night eating and how the circadian rhythms impact obesity. It turns out that in mice, at least, eating while they would normally be sleeping does impact weight gain adversely. The group of mice that ate only during the day (mouse "night") gained 48% more weight verses 20% for the group that ate during their normal active hours. Both groups of mice had access to high fat diet and both ate about the same number of calories.
http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=105278
Tim Parker, Scotts Valley, CA
October 14, 2009 9:17am
Paul,
Staring at a computer monitor all day causes the computer vision syndrome (CVS), and using the mouse all day causes repetitive strain injury (RSI).
I don't think they're conclusively linked to permanent problems like myopia and carpal tunnel syndrome yet, but it's common sense that constant strain and damage are cumulative, as in tennis elbow, noise-induced hearing loss, miner's lung, sunburn, etc. There's no guarantee that chronic eyestrain is completely temporary, and I wouldn't bet on it.
Max, Boston, MA
October 15, 2009 10:13am
A very large section of my hair has turned pure white. Stating that hair cannot change color is just wrong. Parts of my mustache and eyelashes are now also pure white. This change was very very sudden. Not exactly one day, but close to one month. This change was brought on by a trauma to the skin on my face, although the loss of pigment spread. My hair did not start growing a different color, but actually changed color.
It is easy to compare a trauma to the skin with a traumatic event. The condition I have has also been linked with stress.
Brian, Oregon
October 16, 2009 3:21am
I have to agree with Tim Parker. For many years I was at, say for argument's sake, 220-222 lbs and could not move no matter what I tried. Very frustrating. I'm unable to exercise due to a medical condition so burning calories was always out.
Several months ago I made one change and one change only. I ate my main meal before 3 or 4 pm instead of later in the afternoon or evening.
I have lost 10-12 lbs (and still going) since that change so what's to make of it? I think they're on to something or I'm just wired differently than other people.
Timo Markkanen, Canada
October 17, 2009 10:31am
Mr Brian,you do something amazing.
I want to buy you DVD.But I am in China, i dont know how to pay it.
Can you give me a method?Here is my Email:zhanmingjin@gmail.com
ZMJ, NanChang/China
October 22, 2009 5:55pm
This is a excellent presentation. Most people do not understand how things work. They make assumptions and "Common Sense" interpretations of how their bodies work. People often interpret if something is bad more = worse. If it is good more = better. Inherently conclusions formed from a bad premise means poor conclusions. Getting health advice is a complicated thing that requires critical thinking, and understanding that medicine is fluid and constantly changing. Usually not drastically.
Stephen Propatier, Providence RI
November 02, 2009 7:31am
The day after a bike accident that necessitated some facial stitches, my beard turned yellow on the side of the injury. It was not yellow dye from Betadine or povidone, it was really blonde-yellow. I was bothered by that , because I also thought that dead hair would have no way to turn color from trauma. I could buy having new hair come in lighter, but not the old hair. I called the doctor and asked him; he referred me to the EMT. The EMT sheepishly admitted they had used strong peroxide to wash the wound because it was full of dirt and gravel. The peroxide debrides scabs and boils out dirt. Yes, the man said, if you didn't shampoo your beard right away, it might have done that. I had not even washed my face before going to sleep. I drank a bottle of whiskey and passed out. Duh. Not exactly metaphysics.
David Ebert, Cape Coral, Florida
November 03, 2009 12:37pm
In response to Brian, from Oregon- Of course, the color of your hair can change over time, that's why people go gray as they age, and others develop a white forelock. The question is whether EXISTING hair can change color. You say it took about a month, that is plenty of time for new hair to grow in white.
The active growth phase of hair is 2-6 years (one individual hair can grow continually for 2-6 years, even when being cut), but then they die and fall out relatively quickly (as soon as 2 weeks after active growth ceases). In other words, a month is plenty of time for a good deal of your dark hair to fall out, and for new white hair to grow in. No change of existing, grown hair necessary.
Luke, East Lansing
November 06, 2009 2:18pm
I believe there was a recent report on a BBC podcast which stated that excessive reading under low light levels may promote myopia, which seems to be increasingly a problem to the point of being called an epidemic. (i.e. widespread in many countries) in Asian countries 70-90%, in N America and Europe 40%, and in Australia 10-20%.
Check the article i article in Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myopia
Ian Campbell, Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada
November 24, 2009 9:09pm
Myopia in the United States almost doubled in the last three decades, and almost tripled among blacks.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/50802/title/Nearsightedness_increasing_in_the_United_States
It makes me even more skeptical of Brian's assertion that "Eye strain is not cumulative," although I don't think that people are reading in dim light more than before. But people do use computers much more.
Max, Boston, MA
December 20, 2009 10:05pm
"men think about sex every eight second"
Skeptoid edited with Brian Dunning thinking about sex every 8 seconds:
*I can't wait to relax to some hard porn after this* Once before we looked at medical myths perpetuated by movies and pop culture, but the sheer volume of misinformation *like men who think their dick's bigger then mine* can hardly be contained within a single episode. So today we're going to pick it up again, and look at some more *porn-Ahem, I mean* stories about the human body that you've always heard and probably believe.
We'll begin with the age-old advice *So you make your bed and so shall you sleep in it with scores of hot chicks* that you should drink at least eight glasses of water a day, or about two liters. If you're backpacking or bicycle racing *Having sex while bike riding, that'd be something!* that's not really all that much. But for most people, who, like me, sit around watching TV and scratching their belly, *and masturbating* this would merely lead to superfluous trips to the bathroom. The problem is that the advice is not only unsupported, it's also misrepresented *It was supposed to be glasses of blowjobs, not water. The original recommendation seems to come from the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Research Council, which, way back in 1945, *I bet there was lots of sex going on then celebrating the end of WWII* said that you should do this. But what seems to have been forgotten is that the report added "Most of this quantity is *SEX*
Jonathan, Earth
January 07, 2010 12:27pm
Couple of things.
Off the top of my head, Martin Katahn, in his book THE ROTATION DIET, states that mild exercise (such as walking) after eating decreases digestive efficiency to the point that it makes you less able to turn calories into fat (or anything else). Sure, he is selling a diet book, but he also was an MD doing diet research at Vanderbilt University so his opinion is a little better than the average. Thus while sleeping after a meal might not make you fat, not being active after a meal might- in comparison.
(A quick google search shows me that this diet is widely dissed- even though it took me from almost 300 lbs. to 220- I'm 6'6"- in a year and taught me more about metabolism than I learned in the nutrition classes I had to take for my BS in Nursing. The problem with the internet is the Democratic Fallacy- everyone's opinion matters.)
While it isn't the same as the myth of reading in dim light, I do have one observation. When I got my first pair of glasses at 25 my optometrist told me that my love of reading was the cause of my nearsightedness. Perhaps he was wrong? But it seemed to make sense. Do anything to the body repeatedly and the body adapts to that thing. So, near focus for hours every day and you wind up with an eye that near focuses better than it far focuses. My anecdotal evidence is that, while I am now nearly 50, presbyopia still hasn't set in. I still take my glasses off to read, sometimes to the amazement of my contemporaries
Janis Berzins, Cookeville, TN
January 23, 2010 10:27am
I, too, have to take off my glasses (and/or contacts) to read, if I don't have reading glasses nearby. I've worn glasses or contacts for near-sightedness since I was seven years old, and now that I'm in my 40s and presbyopia has set in, my "corrected" vision renders me unable to clearly see nearby objects. Whereas if I remove my contact lenses, I can see perfectly so long as the object is only a few inches away. :)
Lisa, Ft White, FL
January 28, 2010 10:02am
I have gotten several "error 310: Too many redirects when trying to play Skeptoid's audio. I really want to listen to all of these. Is this a known problem or is this on my end of the internet?
Nvidia_ryan@hotmail.com, Provo, Utah
July 22, 2010 4:23am
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As you age you accumulate mutations in the stem cells that produce melanocytes, allowing your hair follicles to produce pigments. Eventually they shut down, most likely to protect you from cancer.
http://tinyurl.com/ktfls9
Lee Haywood, Nottingham, England
October 06, 2009 8:08am