Health "facts" that you believe to be myths and why. See if you can change my mind.

[TattyDevine]

Anyone got any? I've got a couple.

First one is this bullshit that you have to drink a certain amount of water a day that isn't dictated by your body's thirst or cues, but by some arbitrary amount.

Why the hell would your body not tell you if it needed water? How have we evolved this far not realising we needed to be drinking double or triple the amount of water we feel we need to? Thirsty, have a drink. Not thirsty, don't. Like food. Hungry, eat. Not hungry? Shouldn't eat. What terrible fate will befall us if we don't drink 2 litres of water a day? And how did we evolve for thousands and thousands of years before this bit of knowledge was bestowed upon us?

2nd one - don't eat at night because you won't burn it and it will be stored as fat, but if you eat the same amount but during the day you will burn it.

Well, surely if you have done the same level of activity in a day and had the same amount of food within that day it will even out? Over a 24 hour period, I've taken in x amount of energy and burned y amount. If I took most of it in at night it makes up for the deficit in the morning. If I take it evenly over the day there was no deficit to make up for but I've still taken in the same amount and burned up the same amount.

3rd one - coffee and tea dehydrates you because it is a mild diuretic. Okay so its a mild diuretic but you are still more hydrated drinking it because it doesn't make you piss out more than what you took in in terms of extra fluid by drinking it in the first place. So it still counts as a drink. (In fact my GP surgery has a poster saying about taking plenty of fluids if you have a cold, and that it doesn't have to be water but a cup of tea or coffee is just as good). When I read that, I was so revived by the no nonsense common sense approach I had to restrain myself from licking the poster with delight.

Yours please, and try and convince me otherwise with non bullshitty science if you think I'm wrong (which I'm happy to be with a proper science-boffiny cut-down)

That's interesting about other methods of evolution. The specifically evolving thing though - I took that to mean that the gene that allowed a certain group to drink milk into adulthood gave a specific advantage at a stage when humans started drinking milk from other animals. The practice and the ability 'evolved' together, iyswim?

Dried fruit is full of sugar.

It doesn't suddenly develop more sugar after you dry it out.

I think the dried fruit thing is because dried fruit isn't as filling, so it's easy to consume more, and eat a lot of sugar that way. And dried fruit would have a higher percentage of sugar because the volume is reduced.

Yes I often get in a mess talking about evolution because it's so easy to slip into the language of intention and design. But by "specifically evolved to" I mean there's a bit of my genome you could point to that enables me to digest milk as a adult, and the reason I have it is because it enabled my ancestors to drink the milk of other mammals and gave them a survival advantage.

However that tells us nothing about whether it's morally right or healthy if you have other nutritious alternatives.

Totally agree about the monophasic sleep thing.
I read about it in Deborah Jackson's book Baby Wisdom. Many indiginous people still don't ascribe to the idea of a block of uninterrupetd sleep as we do in the West.

It really helped me get through the frequent night wakings when my kids were young. I realised that as long as I had 8 hours in total it was fine.
A real paradigm shift for me.

YY to fruit sugar being no been than cane/beet sugar.
Point in washing veg with water? - get rid of grit and some insects but the bacteria will remain...I raised this point on a cooking forum many years ago, everyone got very twitchy, it was important to. Do it and not to be questioned - weirdos!
Smothering go kids in sunscreen leaves them Vit D deficient.

You don't need to take water on a short run (less than 60min), for fear of dehydrating - it won't work, drink what you need 30 min before a run. Of course if you take it for mouth feel, fine.
If you don't lose weight on a new diet and exercise plan in the first couple of weeks, it's most definitely not because you have gained muscle and lost fat because muscle weighs more than fat! Muscle is incredibly hard to gain and you won't make much of a difference to muscle with a couple of Zumba classes.
If the scales show a few pounds up after a night out - it's not fat gain, it's more likely to be temporary fluid retention from increased salt and carb consumption.

Yes, sheshata. But they don't say that. A dried apricot has no more sugar than one off the tree.

I have no problem with people being cautioned against eating 20 dried apricots, as a snack, because of sugar/calories, etc. But the message has been lost. People actually think dried fruit has more sugar than regular fruit.

Equally I get stabby at the fresh juice is no better than a can of coke nonsense.

Is unlucky83 still around?

So, if I blend kale, beetroot, an apple etc, not pulp or remove any of it but the core of the apple, add water and drink it, the lack of chewing and saliva, is not such a good way to digest all these fruits or veggies than if I chewed it?

I ??? this thread, especially your posts Tatty! Am grinning madly at all the posters desperately defending the irrational shite they have come to perceive as Tru Facts.

Vitamin C cures colds. No, it doesn't. Not even if you take zinc at the same time. (A massive overdose of zinc at the very second your cold begins has been shown to perhaps reduce the symptoms. However, you need to be in a lab where somebody's anxiously monitoring you for early signs of infection.)

wonderful thread. Although I'm now really confused as to the causes of piles; so far we have cold surfaces, hot surfaces and wet grass. Where should I sit?

the rage for me is relating sun strength to air temperature, therefore thinking that because it is a cool June day you don't need sunscreen.

With the "exercising in the morning" thing, there is an argument that exercising in a fasted state makes your body more efficient at burning fat, so if, e.g. you're an endurance runner, that may be beneficial as means you don't chow through your glycogen reserves so fast in a race. Not to say that morning exercisers always exercise without eating first, but I know a lot who do.

Ooh I love this thread so much!

I remember being in secondary school in the early 90's and there was an article in Just Seventeen or Mizz about what "models" do to be so beautiful and they said "drink lots of water!" And suddenly all the girls at school were lugging about massive bottles of Evian.

I also let it slip at school pick up time last summer that neither of my DC had sun cream or hats on when I dropped them off, everyone was horrified. But if being outside in the sunshine for 30 minutes at lunch break is so dangerous why does it make you feel so good?

I agree on the sunscreen thing too handbag - I think the lack of time people spend outside generally probably contributes to the rise in people suffering from depression - slapping factor 50 on at the first hint of sunshine compounds it. For all but the most pale skinned, 15-20 mins a day of unhindered exposure to the sun is likely to do much more good than harm. Then cover up with clothes or sunscreen.

"Your breast milk will adjust to your baby's needs ie. if baby needs milk or watery milk"

How? Do your breasts somehow communicate with the baby? Does baby suck differently? HOW does your breast milk adjust instantly? If your baby is more thirsty than needing 'food', how does your breast know this?

Boobs give a watery milk first to quench thirst and then gives the rich hind milk for the feed.

Boobs are clever .

Feckless it isn't quite that clever. It works out that the mother is hot and wants lots to drink, and assumes the baby will.

OTOH the areola absorbs some of the baby's saliva which will in some instances contain germs the mother hasn't got yet and mother will then immune-react and produce the required antibodies which are then delivered in the milk.

Yep. . Is the reasons my eyeballs roll out of my head when idiots say that there's no benefit to breastfeeding past 6 months.

To keep drinking water when you have a vomiting bug. I go completely nil by mouth at the first sign, and it lasts 8 hours max. A normal healthy individual can cope without liquids for a few hours.

Love this.

Re the sudden need to drink two litres of water a day (and naturally it has to be bottled, not tap), I believe the 'research' that 'found' it out was sponsored by Vichy.

Coffee really doesn't have a special route through the kidneys or anything. ALL liquids are hydrating, even neat vodka :) Not recommended to make 40% spirits your only liquid source, though.

Coffee's a fantastic antioxidant. This is one of those things that all nutrition experts know, but find it's not worth saying in the face of so much balderdash about 'toxins'.

Saturated fat (animal fat) is not bad for you.
Nice article here: www.huffingtonpost.com/christiane-northrup/saturated-fat_b_4914235.html

thedevilinside
That is fine if you don't have diarrhea as well, in which case, you can dehydrate very quickly.

I'd say to keep drinking water, but in small portions.
IME, though, drinking water helps to "wash" the stomach even more quickly than not drinking.

Also spraying your face with an aerosol of mineral water stops your skin drying out, I understand that it makes it wet but how does that help? I've never got that.

FOOD FADS etc is a multi million pound business Plus dieting. Beware anyone using you for their profit margin

Handbag, it doesn't. If anything, it would dry it out as the evaporating water would take some of the moisture from your skin with it. More likely it doesn't do anything, though, apart from make your skin look damp dewy for a few minutes. And clog your makeup.

Yes to cholesterol.

That high chol is a big killer. Well considering 50% of people who have heart attacks have low cholesterol and it has been proving that higher levels of cholesterol is actually healthier for women then I believe the whole lowering cholesterol is all about pushing the statins.

Statins have been proving to only be helpful in people who have already had a heart attack but yet gps are prescribing them left right and centre with very sketchy science to back it up that they actually work. Not to mention that the side effects are probably more dangerous than high cholesterol can ever be.

Lots of new and interesting information coming out about it.