Drs. debunk 7 medical myths
 

From U.S. News & World Report online (it's in slideshow format, click "next" through the images), nothing TOO earth-shattering, but some are really interesting: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/photogr...re.php?image=1

I don't trust it when myths are "debunked." They need more people.

I will continue to tell people to drink lots of water and not to read in dim light.

^^^LOL! :)

Those are the only "myths" that stuck out for me. :) My eyes hurt when I read in dim light and I feel dehydrated when I don't drink a lot of water everyday. Until they can prove that pain and super thirst don't have consequences, boooo to them.

I'll keep drinking water and flipping on a light to read, too ;), but I'll admit that I have always heard (and believed) the thing about your hair and nails still growing after you're dead and about the shaved hair coming back thicker and coarser... I remember the junior high conversations about whether to start shaving above the knee, because "once you start you can't stop, all the hair will come back thick and dark - ugh!!" :)

LOL. I don't think I thought enough of the hair and nails after death thing to believe it. I did believe the hair growing back coarser and thicker thing. Until I noticed that my hair didn't really grow back coarser and thicker. :D

How the heck is drinking 8 glasses of water a day setting the bar to high for some people?

And the old family cures used to work and Drs. made HOUSE CALLS!

Now if it is not FDA approved, it does not work!

Health Food Stores cannot state that certain herbs, spices, and vitamins can cure anything as the FDA says so!

What happened to the old days when those things worked for us?

Water, water everywhere
 

I don't think drinking water is the problem - it's the rather random "8" glasses, which hasn't been proven to be better than 7 or 9. It's the amount rather than the water itself which is medically unproven.

Too little water is a problem and too much water is a problem.

That may be why they picked 8.

There are a lot of people who don't drink any water and have to rely on their foods for water. And their foods are so processed and fattening, anyway. They only drink sugary drinks or coffee. It's really gross thinking about some people's food and beverage diets.

Except that doctors are saying that even your soda or your food counts as water intake. 8 has no basis in fact, so saying that someone picked it as a balance between too much and too little is trying to create justification for something that doesn't exist. With the water that people get from other sources 2.2 liters may be too much.

It's only in the past few years that bottled water became available, and now everyone has to have water with them all the time. It didn't used to be that way, and we got along perfectly fine.

I went to college in Florida, where the tap water was warm, over-chlorinated (so it wasn't brown), and stunk from the hydrogen sulphide.

We drank lots of beer and scotch for sure, and I recall making up jugs of cherry Kool-Aid, but I'm guessing I didn't drink even one glass of plain water the whole 4+ years I was in school. I'll bet no one else there did either.

Before bottled water, many people put faucet or filtered water in cups and lug mugs so they could have water throughout the day. Or they drank water with meals or in one sitting to get rid of thirst and the possiblity of dehydration.

I've been hearing about the importance of drinking water since I was little. And it wasn't a new idea. Now it's just more available and convenient.

Here's a cool article on water that doesn't mention the random 8 glasses a day rule.

http://nutrition.about.com/od/hydrat...terarticle.htm

.

Well...duh...there are various recommendations for water consumption that are based on different research and other factors. I was theorizing as to why 8 glasses a day was possibly chosen because there's no consistent proof that it has absolutely no justification. :rolleyes: Doctors and research institutes can't possibly account for every human being's activity and consumption level so a more general recommendation may have been what they were going for.

Another cool article: http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/library/NU/00283.html

Not really. As a kid I had a thermos in my lunch box (usually soup) and would buy a 1/2 pint of milk for lunch. Maybe a sip from the water fountain down the hall (after asking permission), and that's all I had for the day in grade school. I don't recall being particularly thirsty when I got home.

People don't need nearly as much water as they seem to think they do.

It's as simple as this: If you're thirsty, have a drink. If not, don't worry about it. I'm 54 and doing fine.

Yeah, really.

It may not have been what you or people you knew did but this is a big world. ;)

It's something I grew up around and my parents got that info from doctors and health and fitness experts of the 1960s-1980s. :)


Many people don't drink water when they are thirsty. "Quinch your thirst" isn't in reference to water. And they wonder why they are always thirsty and/or don't know that not being "thirsty" doesn't mean they aren't dehydrated.


Good for you. :D

There are people who have smoked for 30 years and don't have lung cancer yet. I still don't recommend smoking.

DSTCHAOS,

Why are you so much more likely to assume that because it was your experience, it was a commonly accepted thing, even as you tell JonoBN14 that his experience doesn't really count?

I'm with him that the conventional wisdom of 8 glasses of water a day is a much bigger deal today than it used to be.

And I think bottled water sales and promotion have a lot to do with it. Is the medical need greater? Nope. Is it something you see a lot more? Yep.

Is there less of a consensus among medical professional than the often quoted amount would lead you to believe? Yep.

I didn't say that.

If you and the people you knew didn't do it but other people did somewhere, it is safe to assume that it exists. Right? Some people thought yoga was new.

That isn't what my posts to JonoBN14 were about. To Jono, I'm talking about water consumption, in general, and how people drinking water throughout the day didn't just start with the bottled water craze. I'm not talking about the 8 glasses rule.

It's obviously a much bigger deal and more advertised today--that doesn't mean that drinking water throughout the day didn't exist before it became such a big deal to the masses of North America.

I'm not prepared to dispute that people drank water before the current bottled water craze; in fact, I'll go one better: I think some people drank water throughout human history.

Was anyone else bothered by how not-really-medical the medical myths were in the list?

Here's a thought: After drinking water, how does it get into the cells of our body, that compose our tissues?

Dehydration in some areas of the world is a serious issue. In the US, it should not be, however, it can be. Hyponatremia is also an issue in the US.

The issue is about balance. When 8 glasses were conceptualized, it was based on OUNCES to make it easy for lay people. There was no such thing as supersize. Now, there is.

During and after a workout or cardiovascular aerobic exercise, one has to KNOW when he or she thinks he or she is dehydrated.