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)

I just have a latte for breakfast these days. Then a cooked meal at lunchtime and something light in the evenings. Works for me. Oh, and I avoid quorn like the plague because it really doesn't agree with me.

If I eat breakfast it kick starts my appetite and I need to eat huge amounts at mid day. I expect breakfast works for some and not others but let's stop promoting the myth that it stops everyone from overeating....because it's just bollocks.

Cheese doesn't give you nightmares if you scoff it before bed.
Eating anything heavy (not just cheese!) will make your body work harder, thus raise your temperature which in turn will disturb your sleep, causing fitful rest...and dodgy dreams.
Cheese is NOT the devil

I have a cup of tea when I get in to work. That's breakfast for me.

I was also in the "porridge is shite and I'm hungry half an hour later" camp.

Until I started pouring lots of cream on it. Now, I am not hungry til lunchtime and the cream probably contains fewer calories than whatever I would normally have troughed down when I was starving after the porridge!

I managed to lose a load of weight whilst having porridge/cream/banana for breakfast.

front page of the Times stated that 'too much sleep may kill you'

My immediate thought was that all teenagers would be in immediate danger.

If you don't eat enough when dieting, your body goes into starvation mode and you won't lose any weight.

Yes, as proven by all those poor people in famine stricken countries

"nut butter or a handful of raw nuts on your porridge for breakfast probably would make a difference to how long it takes for you to get hungry again"

Because you've had 3 times the calories?

No, I jest, because actually there might be something in this. Or not. I think we probably all are different.

I do know, thorough proper research, that "fat" increases satiety. The simple explanation could be that its because you have more calories and the body "knows". There could be more to it though, it could make you consume less overall.

There has to be some proper research on this though because these are my random musings based mainly early morning experiments involving mostly bacon.

Littleham and Grape I toast thee

It's not just 'more calories' Tatty, it's just different stuff which provide different things to our bodies. Fat takes longer to break down than carbs (so more satiating) and enables cell regeneration and repair. Carbs to some degree or another (sugar and white carbs fastest, legumes etc slower) are converted into energy relatively quickly. Fat and protein are essential for health, simple carbs not so - if forced, our bodies will use fat for energy but it isn't the first port of call as it were. (I'm leaving fruit and veg - although these are also 'carby' - out of this to keep it simple in terms of macronutrients!)

With the starvation mode thing-truly starve yourself, as in a famine, or indeed anorexia, then of course you will lose weight and eventually die. For most of us though, it is impossible to sustain that level of starvation, our inbuilt survival urge to eat, coupled with easy availability of food, means we will eat a certain amount. And like everything else, different people's bodies adapt differently and some are incredibly responsive to a reduction in calories, adapting to 'limp mode' to conserve body fat at all costs, only cranking back up (or not, dieting can be disastrous) when they eat more...

I quite like the sound of the bacon experiments btw

Sorry, by 'some degree or another' I mean how quickly they get converted...what the GI index describes. Porridge relatively slowly as carbs go, slowly enough for the people who feel satisfied by them all morning at least! Sorry if I'm preaching to the choir here

please could anyone link to the stuff about cholesterol / hearts / diet / women? Thank you!

It's better to brush your teeth before breakfast rather than after, due to acid juices weakening enamel which then gets damaged by brushing.

well, yes, the flu vaccine was a bit of a blunder, but these things do happen in reality.

it is the 'having the flu jab gives you flu' that really shows empty air between the ears.

that said, I found out (from the pharmacist) that it takes 3 weeks to become effective. Will be having jab earlier next year!

Being cold suppresses your immune system, so if there's a virus in your environment you're more susceptible to infection. Wet hair -> illness has some truth, sometimes.

The hair one actually makes sense to me. When my hair is long and thick I feel tired, drained and horrible. I then cut it and it feels like a big weight is off my shoulders.

Hobbit

Wet hair and colds... some weight. If you have been swimming, or showering, the protective nose mucus and gubbins have been washed away = more susceptible to cold virus. Why it is best to breathe through nose on public transport.
Five fruit a day was invented by......... a US fruit marketing lobby group.
8 glasses of water....also misinterpreted by our media clowns experts.
2 litres ish, any way, food tea coffee etc.

Myth: that bodies function like machines...
Truth: our bodies are gloriously complex, vast interconnected eco- systems

I loathe the way we understand and treat our bodies as machines, its actually quite a damaging concept in many ways

Agreed, Misc. I think that will change quite soon, and people will feel sad for us looking back.

I don't believe that smoking alone causes lung cancer. My Nana was a 40 a day smoker for over 50 years, she died at 85 of old age. I believe that some people are genetically predisposed to getting certain forms of cancer, and if you smoke and you have this predisposition then you are aggravating something that is already there.

I should add before anyone jumps on me and accuses me of being part of the pro smoking lobby, I'm not a smoker and never have been.

Somebody said something about chinese food syndrome...which made me think of msg, I don't think anyone has mentioned it?
It's an epic myth that MSG causes all kinds of illnesses, from headaches to sickness to all sorts. I know people who claim it makes them violently ill. But as one food author put it "if msg is so bad for you, why doesn;t the whole of asia have a headache?" MSG is ubiquitous in Japan for instance, widely known as one of the worlds healthiest diets.
There is no proof at all of msg causing any problems (in anyone other than people with some very specific issues). Very poor studies from 50 years ago are cited as proof. It's rubbish, pure myth, but accepted by millions.

I don't believe that smoking alone causes lung cancer. My Nana was a 40 a day smoker for over 50 years, she died at 85 of old age

Well yes Piddlepoo, clearly most people who smoke don't ever get lung cancer; but the lifetime lung cancer risk is an order of magnitude lower for non-smokers, even the ones with dodgy lung cancer genes - so the vast majority of cancers are caused by smoking in that they wouldn't have occurred if the victim hadn't smoked (actively or passively). It's true to say that those cancers are caused by a combination of smoking and bad luck but not really informative.

The real smoking myth used to be that the risk is restricted to lung cancer. Thanks to government health campaigns we are now more aware that cardiovascular damage is the most usual way for smoking to kill you, but people still don't talk about COPD and the less obviously linked cancers like kidney, bladder and breast cancer.