Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban From: snopes@netcom.com (snopes) Subject: Health myths Date: Thu, 16 Jun 1994 01:48:08 GMT The 'Myth Busters' column from the Health section of the L.A. Times: GO AHEAD AND CROSS YOUR EYES It was the kind of health information you never questioned. After all, it came from an authority -- not your doctor, but from your mom, your grandpa or maybe even your pal Jimmy, who once dated a med student. From time to time, we'll look at these long-held health "facts" and answer the question -- Sorry, Mom -- true or false? "Cross your eyes and they will stay that way." Not so, says Dr. Art Corish, an Irvine optometrist and former president of the Orange County Optometric Society. "Crossing the eyes is a perfectly normal activity, an ability eye doctors expect you to have. It will not hurt your eyes." He tells parents to ignore their children's crossed-eye antics if they're clearly clowning around. The less said, he says, the better. "Swallow gum and it will not only bind you up, but will stay in your stomach for seven years." Not true, says Dr. Kenneth Hepps, a gastroenterologist on staff at Northridge Hospital Medical Center. "It would pass uneventfully in the majority of cases," he says. Normal transit time through the body? About three to five days. What we should be warned about is swallowing hair or persimmons. Swallow enough of either, and you could develop a bezoar -- medical-ese for a very tightly packed accumulation of hair or vegetable matter that's only partially digested. Hairballs -- known to stomach doctors as trichobezoars -- are most common in psychiatric patients, Hepps says, although teen-age girls, fond of twisting and nibbling on their hair, might legitimately be considered an above-average risk. "We had a patient at a Texas hospital from the psychiatric ward who had plucked out and swallowed nearly a 1-pound ball of hair over time," Hepps recalls. Hepps and his colleagues were forced to remove the hairball with a scope inserted through the mouth. Bezoars caused by persimmons, which are pulpy, are called phytobezoars. They are a particular hazard for people who have undergone stomach surgery or for diabetics, for whom the functioning of smooth muscles in the digestive tract and elsewhere may decline over time. "Walk barefoot and your feet will grow and grow." False, says Franklin Kase, a Burbank podiatrist and chairman of the San Fernando Valley division of the Los Angeles County Podiatric Medical Assn. This myth should be rewritten, Kase says, to something like: "Become pregnant and your feet might grow." During pregnancy, the extra weight puts pressure on the legs, feet and ankles. "The soft tissue in the feet may stretch and expand, elongating the foot and arch and causing splaying or widening of the front part of the foot," he says. With age, your feet also tend to get longer, but this happens whether you are shoeless or shod. Also, the more you walk, the more chance your feet will undergo an adult growth spurt. "Stop working out and your muscles will turn to fat." "Impossible," says Julie Silverstein, an exercise physiologist at Centinela Hospital's Fitness Institute in Culver City. "Muscle and fat are two separate entities. One cannot turn into another. "If you decrease exercise and continue to eat (the same amount), the extra calories you take in will be stored as fat," she says. "You feel flabby because your muscles aren't as toned (once you quit workouts). You lose muscle mass and you gain fat. But one doesn't turn into another." Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban From: snopes@netcom.com (snopes) Subject: Health myths Date: Thu, 16 Jun 1994 01:49:32 GMT More health myths: DON'T BE BUGGED BY DRAFTS -- VIRUSES CAUSE COLDS It was the kind of health information you never questioned. After all, it came from an authority -- not your doctor, but from your mom, your grandpa or maybe even your pal who once dated a med student. From time to time, we'll look at these long-held health "facts" and answer the question -- sorry, Mom -- true or false. * "Sitting in a drafty room increases your chance of catching cold." "False," says Elliot Dick, professor of preventive medicine at the University of Wisconsin Medical School, Madison, and a longtime researcher of the cold virus. "The draft would have to contain a virus that went up your nose and attached to a mucosal cell," he says. In other words, a draft doesn't give you a cold, a virus does. Once you have a cold, drafts don't make them worse, he adds, citing research by colleagues. * "Get out of those wet clothes before you catch your death." Forget it, Dick says. "Wet clothes don't increase the risk of a cold, either." * "Cranberry juice will cure a urinary tract infection." A recent study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. and funded by Ocean Spray Cranberries Inc., suggests cranberry juice can reduce bacteria in the urine. The Harvard researchers, who led the study, aren't certain how the juice might work, but speculate a chemical in it might deserve the credit. The researchers suggest more research. Until more data is in, cranberry juice probably can't hurt, says Dr. Eila Skinner, USC assistant professor of urology. But it won't necessarily rule out the need to see a doctor, she adds: "In adult women with symptoms of urinary tract infection, 50% will clear without treatment, usually by drinking lots of fluid -- and if it happens to be cranberry juice, great. Any liquid helps get out the bacteria. If symptoms don't clear in two or three days, though, see a doctor." Antibiotics might be necessary. Infections in men and children can be associated with potentially serious disorders, so they should always see a doctor. * "If a man isn't bald by age 30, he probably never will be." Not true. "Some people start balding later," says Dr. Bernard Raskin, a Valencia dermatologist and UCLA assistant clinical professor of medicine/dermatology. "People who start balding earlier tend to lose more hair and become bald earlier," he says. "People who lose hair later tend to lose it more slowly. If they do become bald, it occurs at a later age." Raskin is often asked if baldness passed through the mother's side of the family. His answer? No. Laying to rest another misconception, he adds: "There is no relationship between baldness and sexual potency, sterility or fertility."