Common Medical Myths - Busted by the BMJ
A hat tip to KevinMD’s guest blogger, JoshMD for this great link. The British Medical Journal offers a short historical analysis of 7 common medical myths, sometimes perpetuated by physicians themselves:
- People should drink at least eight glasses of water a day
- We use only 10% of our brains
- Hair and fingernails continue to grow after death
- Shaving hair causes it to grow back faster, darker, or coarser
- Reading in dim light ruins your eyesight
- Eating turkey makes people especially drowsy
- Mobile phones create considerable electromagnetic interference in hospitals.
To find out why each of these commonly held beliefs are either untrue or unsubstantiated, check out the original journal article. It’s a lot of fun.This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.
Even more interesting are the comments that debunk the authors potentially flawed ‘debunking of medical myths’… particularly about 1.) hydration 2.) cell phones in hospitals and 3.) dim lighting
The comments section is interesting, but I don’t believe the authors claims have been debunked. As usual, there are those who support the authors’ analysis and those who don’t. I think Jason Crenshaw’s points are well taken.