Don't Believe Everything You Hear!

[Albert Joseph <A.Joseph@jandp.com.sa>]

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Common knowledge is often bunk!

Don't Believe Everything You Hear!
By Alfie Kohn - Reader's Digest

1.	You shouldn't swim/bath immediate after eating!  --  This bit of
folk wisdom was prevalent half a century ago when the American Red Cross
published a manual on lifesaving claiming that stomach cramps and
possible death awaited the foolhardly swimmer who went straight from
table to pool.  But in 1961 exercise physiologist Arthur Steinhaus
reported in the Journal of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation
that the very idea of  "stomach cramps" was questionable.  Many athletes
report swimming long distances regularly in training almost directly
after eating, he said.
2.	The more you cut your hair, the faster it grows!  -- When the
hairs start to grow back, they may feel coarser because they are short
and all of the same length, but the speed of growth doesn't vary.
3.	Carrots are good for your eyes.
		Carrots contain beta-carotene, which your body turns
into vitamin A.  Since it's needed by your retinas, a complete
deprivation of this vitamin would cause night blindness.  But the body
has immense reserves of beta-carotene stored in the liver, easily
replenished from any number of foods.  There is no real danger of
running low, at least for people in industrialized countries.
Practically speaking, then, eating carrots won't benefit your vision!
4.	Reading in the dark will ruin your eyes!
		Tell your mother she was wrong!  As the American Academy
of Ophthalmology puts it:
		" Reading in dim light can no more harm the eyes than
taking a photograph in dim light can harm the camera."
5.	Spicy food is bad for the stomach!
		David Graham, a gastroenterologist at Baylor College of
Medicine in Houstan, wanted to record what happens to the stomach lining
when people eat spicy foods.  Dr. Graham and his colleagues fed healthy
subjects a bland meal, al bland meal with six tablets of aspirin, a
pepperoni pizza, or a spicy Mexican dinner.
		The next morning, the researchers used a video endoscope
(a fiber-optic tube that is swallowed) to inspect the stomach lining of
each subject. The people who had taken aspirin developed small pits in
the protective lining of their stomachs, but no one else did.  Even
munching enchiladas with jalapeno peppers for both lunch and dinner
caused no damage.
		Of course, Grahma studied healthy people Surely people
suffering from duodenal ulcers would do better on a bland diet, right?
Not necessarily. In 1984 some gastroenterologists in India sprinkled
three grams of chilli powder on the food of 25 ulcer patients every day.
Another 25 went without this staple of Indian cuisine.  After four weeks
the chili eaters' stomach linings were unaffected, and their ulcers had
healed at the same rate as those of the patients condemned to a bland
menu!
6.	You can catch cold from being chilled. 
		More people come down with colds during winter than in
summer, but that doesn't mean lower temperatures are reasonable.  The
only way to catch a cold is to be exposed to one of the relevant
viruses.  The sole effect cold weather might have is to bring people
closer together for longer periods, which increases our odds of
infecting one another.
7.	The full moon makes people crazy!
	There have been numerous attempts to charge the moon with
inciting murder or suicide.  Most research studies, particularly the
recent ones, find no significant relationship whatsoever.
	Some writers have looked at the number of injured people showing
up at hospital emergency rooms, at assassinations are railroad
disasters, and even at the number of penalties in hockey games.  The
results: nothing.  In a systematic review of 37 studies, James Rotton of
Florida International University and Ivan Kelly of the University of
Saskatchewan, two tireless investigators of lunatic claims, couldn't
find evidence of a special lunar effect.  The only meaningful
correlation they came up with was between belief in a moon effect and
belief in things like reincarnation.
	Says Kelly, " There's a built-in bias.  If a person already
believers that the full moon has an effect, he will be more vigilant and
notice what happens then. But no one says, 'What an uneventful night-
and it's a full moon!"

	Complied by: Albert Joseph - 13.03.2000
	a.joseph@jandp.com.sa <mailto:a.joseph@jandp.com.sa> 




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