We’re living through an age of post truth and peak-conspiracy, but even before social media connected us all to each other and the wackiest theories out there, some things— especially health-related—just stuck. Verve takes a deep, cautious, and well-sourced dive into some myths and misconceptions around health and wellness.
Injections and Immunity
Let’s begin with perhaps the most pertinent, pervasive, and potentially destructive of health myth topics: vaccines. Vaccines work by putting a minuscule amount of a harmless, tweaked form of a disease into the body, usually via an injection. The body then creates antibodies to fight off the ‘disease’ so should you ever contract the disease proper your body has the systems in place to repel it—commonly called ‘immunity’. Side-effects that manifest as symptoms such as aches or a fever are simply a sign that your immune system is working hard, not that you’re suffering from said disease (but if you don’t have any reaction, it doesn’t mean that your immune system’s not working, every body is built differently).
Misunderstanding Covid Jabs
A big part of why Covid-19 vaccines were developed so quickly is due to previous coronavirus outbreaks such as SARS and MERS, that meant there had already been much research done. Scientists had long expected a new coronavirus to emerge at some point, so already had a strong base to work from.
Sugar and Hyperactivity
Contrary to popular belief, sugar does not cause hyperactivity in kids, either. According to the Australian Academy of Science, “based on numerous studies over several decades”, there is “no substantial evidence that sugar or artificial sweeteners” send children wild. A meta-analysis of 16 studies concluded “sugar does not affect the behaviour or cognitive performance of children”. It’s argued that preconceptions around sugar may be playing tricks on pre-conditioned parents who almost expect their kids to act up after ingesting large amounts of sweet treats—especially as it often happens in settings such as birthday parties or holidays when children are hyped up and excited anyway. (But there is conflicted evidence about the effect of sugar on those with ADHD.) Of course, it’s no excuse to let the little ones gorge on masses of chocolate cake, and healthier options should also be incorporated into their diets.
Honey Trap
Healthier sweet options, however, are not as simple as swapping processed sugars for honey. Though honey does contain a wealth of vitamins and minerals, most are trace amounts meaning to benefit you’d need to consume an awful lot of honey. Although it has been linked to improved gut health and respiratory conditions, it is also super-calorific. Calories aside, ingesting excess honey— which is mostly a combination of fructose and glucose—will also lead to blood sugar spikes and increases the risk of heart disease and diabetes. Most feel better seeing ‘honey’ rather than ‘sugar’ on food labels, but the benefit is more to the mind than the body according to dietician and author Jenny Friedman, as “the body pretty much perceives sugar and honey added to foods the same way”.
Autism Links
As for the so-called links between vaccines and autism, that myth stems from a discredited study of just 12 children that was published in The Lancet journal in 1998. The doctor behind the study—which implied the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine caused autism—has since been struck off the medical register, and there have been studies on more than a million children that show no link between vaccinations and the neurological condition. Even before the covid conspiracies, the anti-vax movement was gaining such traction that it was leading to the re-emergence of diseases like mumps and measles in regions where they had been near enough eradicated.
A Sweet Addiction
From one injection to another—the notion that sugar is more addictive than heroin is a load of old baloney, too. That misconception took root in great part thanks to Dr Robert Lustig’s 2009 book, Fat Chance—along with some studies of sweet-toothed rats—which reported on how sugar stimulates our brain’s reward system in a similar fashion to heroin (and cocaine, alcohol, and tobacco); but, according to US dietician Ayana Habtemariam, similar reactions have been observed in humans “in response to puppies and music”. Pleasurable is not the same as addictive, and sugar is not a drug. Not only does this myth belittle the struggles of substance addicts, it could, it is feared, also be harmful to people’s relationship with food. Dr Hisham Ziauddeen, a psychiatrist at Cambridge University, says that while sugar does activate the brain’s reward centres, it doesn’t, unlike drugs, “hijack those systems and turn off their normal controls”. Emeritus professor of nutrition and dietetics at King’s College London calls the comparison between sugar and hard drugs “absurd” and points out that people “do not get withdrawal symptoms when they cut sugar intake”.
Middle Age Spread May Serve a Purpose
Those with a sweet tooth will be thrilled to learn that, while being seriously overweight is without question detrimental to your health, packing on just a couple of extra pounds may help you live longer. A 2013 review by the US Centers for Disease Control of nearly 100 studies involving more than three million people found that a body mass index (BMI) of 25-29 seemed to serve as some sort of protective shield, with an increased reduction in death risk compared to those in the ‘normal’ range of 18.5-24.9 (a BMI of 30 and over is classed as obese and carries the highest risk). A 2016 Danish study and another US study earlier this year backed up these findings, but with the caveat that the extra weight was only beneficial to those who “start adulthood with a body mass index in the normal range and move later in life to being overweight—but never obese…”
Hot Headed and Hair Brained
Sure, heat may rise, but we don’t lose most of our body heat through our heads. Studies have shown that the amount that does escape from our noggins is about proportional to the amount of skin there (around 10 percent), and the reason we may feel a chill upstairs is because it’s the part of our body that’s generally least, if at all, covered by clothing. Similarly, though it does on the surface seem to make sense, heading out of the house while your hair is still wet will not make you sick. However, those coming down with a cold or other ailment should consider a quick blow dry before they head out in winter. A study published in the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences found rhinoviruses (those that cause the common cold) replicate more efficiently at cooler temperatures like those, for instance, inside our exposed nostrils, than they do inside our warmer lungs, meaning the old saying about colder weather being more likely to make you sick may actually be partly true.
WORDS — ALICE BENNETT
ILLUSTRATION– STEFANAMER
