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I have a fond appreciation for debunkology - the art and science of debunking myths that are promolgated among us regarding things like what is and what is not healthful.
Here's several debunkological items that crossed my desk last week. The site they're from is pretty good on a regular basis. There's a radio spot that's produced in which the transcripts are first published.
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February 26, 2004:
Fascinating Medical News II
Interview with Dr. Dean Edell, author of Life, Liberty & The Pursuit Of Healthiness
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Mike Carruthers:
People tend to get more colds in the cold weather, but
you can't catch a cold by being out in the cold.
Dean Edell:
We've thrown naked people into snow banks, and put
them in freezers multiple times to try to disprove
this one. And basically the cold weather has nothing
to do with it, except that in the cold weather we go
indoors more and viruses transmit more easily indoors,
and that's why you get more colds in the winter.
Dr. Dean Edell, author of the book Life, Liberty & The
Pursuit Of Healthiness, says people who carry
around water bottles with them all day may be overdoing it a little.
There've been two studies recently to find that you
just don't need to take 8 glasses of water a day,
because everything you eat is water; vegetables are
95% water, white bread is 40% water, steak is 60%
water. So it's a myth that you need to drink all this water.
And Dr. Edell says the latest research on vitamin
supplements is more than a little discouraging.
Most of the big double-blind studies where you give
half the people real vitamins and supplements, half
the people phony ones, find them worthless. Once again
don't shoot the messenger; I'm just conveying the
scientific evidence. As a matter of fact there may be
a government warning coming out warning certain groups
of people not to take antioxidants. For instance, smokers
get more cancer when they take antioxidants. We're
not exactly sure why this is, but the studies with
vitamin E, and vitamin C, and vitamin A, and all the B
vitamins have shown no impact on heart disease and
cancer.
somethingyoushouldknow.net
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