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)

Got anything non-anecdotal to back up the "aspartame is a carcinogen" thing though? Something peer-reviewed science boffiny? Not something from a website ending in .org?

Or involving rats, because I'm an humanoid.

There's a link for rats, suggesting it is carcinogenic.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1964906/

If websites ending in .org don't count, can I also add that if the 'evidence' is from Facebook, I don't believe it!

www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/Pages/the-truth-about-aspartame.aspx

I do so like it when actual scientists say actual science stuff in a science way.
It makes me happy and that makes me kiss the Ben gOldacre poster on my bedroom wall.
:)

I stand corrected!

I spent years being told that sitting on a cold surface or wearing a jacket that didn't come down past your bum would give you a 'chill in your kidneys' and that would cause more frequent urination. Whenever I went to the loo more often than was expected, I was told I'd caught a chill.

My kidneys are freaking chilly, man! Rest of my body is 37 degrees but these kidneys are like 2 strangely shaped blocks of ice dude!

Ben Goldacre is one of my heroes! Him and Dan Gardner. I read both of their books within 6 months of each other and I think they changed my life. Don't think DP would let me have a poster in the bedroom tho.

There's another link that shows the 'carcinogenic to rats' thing to be not true

A mutation in a gene that allows greater survival and therefore spreads through a population is exactly what evolution is.

And on kidneys - first the water is filtered out of your blood, then is reabsorbed in differing amounts depending on what your body needs. Caffeine and alcohol affect the mechanism by which it is reabsorbed and therefore more water is excreted.

Poor old aspartame.

It never really recovered from that email scam back in the 90's, bit like poor old MMR vaccine.

'Everything in moderation.' No. (Yes, I know this one is very popular on MN.)
Plenty of foods shouldn't be eaten 'in moderation' as part of a healthy diet. At one end of the scale, we should be aiming to eat large quantities of vegies, not consume them 'in moderation'.
At the other end of the scale, there are foods that don't form part of a healthy diet and really shouldn't be eaten more than once a month or less.

As far as the '5 a day' goes, none of the recommended servings have sound evidence behind them, and the number of servings recommended varies between countries. There was a study recently demonstrating the advice in relation to fat was implemented without any solid evidence. I've also read that in the case of cereals (bread, pasta), the recommended number of servings was heavily influenced by the agricultural lobby in the US. Don't know how true that is though.
There are studies suggesting we should be consuming more than five a day though.

I think they promote 8 a day in Australia.

I heard that they picked 5 here as a stretch target that wouldn't be too intimidating.

True click, but the amount of caffeine in tea and coffee is sufficiently low that the overall effect (diuretic + water) is that you become more hydrated. I don't think that's true of alcoholic drinks tho. Anyone got evidence, clearly my research skills have been affected by my red wine.

A mutation in a gene that allows greater survival and therefore spreads through a population is exactly what evolution is.

Actually, that's more natural selection.

Evolution can occur through other mechanisms.

Australia's advice is 'go for 2&5' (two servings of fruit, five of vegies)

Also the problem with the previous statement was the specifically.
"as a Northern European I've demonstrably evolved specifically to drink the milk of other mammals"
In human evolution, tolerance for milk has spread. Nothing evolves specifically to nothing.

That was it Seshata, thank you!

Anyone have any top tips on improving memory?

I think you should ask the water, funny.

Funny, you are only using 10% of your brain anyway.
Just declutter the rest and get some storage from Ikea.

but Mr. Beardy wrote of evolution by natural selection. What's the difference?

Bonny fat babies are a good - I even had a couple of midwives telling me I should feed up my DD1 (she was born on the 4th percentile). Studies including one following the Dutch children who survived the Hunger Winter of 1945 (including Audrey Hepburn) & the Southampton Women's Survey (ongoing) show that a baby should stick to it's growth curve and not be force fed up to an average weight (which is often a weight chart for bottle fed babies & doesn't take into account the parents or the child's build). Sudden changes in diet & feeding people up seems to lead to lots of different long term health issues not just weight related ones. this book covers a lot of it. How can fat babies be good when fat children & adults are not?

Potatoes CAN BE counted as one of your five a day (which is a completely random number anyway & other countries have other targets). They decided to leave them off the list as people like them too much! The fact that a vast number of the Irish population in the 19th century survived on mainly potatoes with small portions of greens & bacon shows how nutritious they are!)

Full fat milk is not bad for you - it is only 4% fat anyway & animal fats help to tell you when you're full. Though cheese is a better source of calcium.

Walking early does not cause bow legs - that's a lack of vitamin D (& sunlight).

Not eating is not "being good today" - this phrase makes me - humans need to eat sensibly & regularly - not eating at all is not a sensible diet and your body will begin to think it is starving & will start to hoard calories. There was a study that body gets used to a certain level of calories (which is why weight plateau's) and that if you do diet, you will need to keep to your lower calorie diet for about six months after you hit your target weight as it takes that long for your body adjust & stop thinking you're starving. I also think that such black & white casual language about food is on the one hand silly & on the other harmful to anyone with serious eating disorders.

This article by one of the Beeb's foreign correspondent amusingly explains that Italians definitely believe that wet hair is almost fatal! www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15987082. Meanwhile sleeping with the windows open or shut is fine - neither is actually better for you.

Do crosswords actually help stave off memory loss, or is that a myth as well?