Medical Myths

TW: An NYT blog put together a list of relatively trivial health myths. I show my favorites below.

From NYT:
"1. Cold weather makes you sick. In studies of cold transmission, people who are chilled are no more likely to get sick than those who were not. It may be that cold weather keeps people indoors, where germs are more likely to catch up with you...

3. You lose most of your body heat through your head. There is nothing special about the head and heat loss. You will lose heat through any uncovered body part...

5. Cracking your knuckles will cause arthritis. Knuckle-crackers are no more likely to have arthritis than those who don’t make annoying popping sounds with their fingers...

9. You should poop at least once a day. A half-truth, say the authors. Regular bowel movements prevent discomfort and constipation, but a perfectly healthy person may not move their bowels every day. Constipation is defined as having fewer than three stools per week.

10. It’s okay to double dip in the chip dip. In one study, scientists took a bite of cracker and then dipped it into salsa, cheese dip, chocolate syrup and water. They did the same test with a fresh, unbitten cracker. Then they measured bacteria in the dips and the volunteers’ mouths. On average, three to six double dips transferred about 10,000 bacteria from the eater’s mouth to the dip. And each cracker picked up between one and two grams of dip. Salsa picked up the most germs from double dipping.

11. Food quickly picked up from the floor is safe to eat. Scientists have put the commonly-cited five-second rule to the test. They found that food that comes into contact with a tile or wood floor does pick up large amounts of bacteria. Food doesn’t pick up many germs when it hits carpet, but it does pick up carpet fuzz."
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/11-health-myths-that-may-surprise-you/