8 health myths busted wide open
News travels fast. And switches direction often. Eggs are bad. Eggs are good. Drinking eight glasses of water a day is recommended. Or is it? Tanya Baldwin, a family medicine physician with Mercy Health in Toledo, Ohio, helped us get the real story on a handful of popular health adages. A few of them — handed down from generation to generation — were never accurate. Persistence gave them more credit than they deserved.
Here are eight health myths you might reconsider.
Eating breakfast helps you lose weight.
The U.S. surgeon general says eating breakfast is a good start to the day. True. But what kind of breakfast? Breakfast boosts your metabolism and gets it off to a good start in the morning, but before you pick up that slice of bacon, think again. Baldwin doesn’t recommend a “full-on three-course breakfast” every day. That won’t help you lose weight. She does recommend eating a “little something” so you’re not as hungry throughout the day. Overeating at one meal tricks the body’s metabolism into storing food as fat instead of using it for nutrition.
Eggs are unhealthy cholesterol bombs.
Eggs are healthy protein bon bons stuffed with good things like omega-3 fatty acids. As a result, the U.S. Dietary Guidelines Advice Committee dropped its recommendation to restrict cholesterol. “A healthy individual eating eight eggs is fine,” Baldwin said. Eggs are protein and a source of omega-3 fatty acids, zinc, B vitamins and iodide — nutrients that work together to battle fatigue and bad moods.
You don’t need to shower EVERY DAY.
An article in The Atlantic prompted treehugger.com to look twice at a person’s need to shower daily and concluded that you can shower as often as you want. But you don’t need to shower so hard. Treehugger concluded that the better idea might be to rethink how you shower: “At the very least, detoxify the products you use, opting for gentler, greener cleansers. Shower less aggressively, without scrubbing at your skin. Use less soap; try the ‘pits and bits’ tactic, soaping only in those key places, while sticking with plain water on the rest of your body.” Baldwin doesn’t think a daily shower is a bad idea and said it won’t hurt anything. The key is to not use antibacterial soap “all the time every day.” Choose instead an organic or natural soap that’s easy on your skin.
Butter tastes good, but it’s so bad for you.
Oh, come on. We live in the dairy state. Butter gets the seal of approval from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, which said moderate butter intake can be part of a healthy diet, although it much prefers olive oil. “In small amounts butter is fine,” Baldwin said. It’s better than margarine, which is a processed food. And though it’s a protein, it’s also a saturated fat, which is bad for cholesterol levels and circulation. She also recommends olive oil over butter.
Sleep, schmeep. Hours don’t matter, do they?
The National Sleep Foundation begs to disagree. The Foundation set guidelines for how many hours a body should sleep based on age. It recommends eight to 10 hours for teens ages 14 to 17; seven to nine hours for those ages 18 to 64; and seven to eight hours for adults 65 years and older. The guidelines are boosted by a report from the National Institutes of Health, which credits sleep for its ability to “help protect your mental health, physical health, quality of life and safety.” Baldwin says to concentrate on regular sleep over the number of hours of sleep you get. It’s better to go to sleep at the same time and get up at the same time than to worry about getting a precise amount of sleep. Adults can get by with six to seven hours of sleep that way.
You should drink eight glasses of water a day.
This one might be on the money, Baldwin said. “Most people are mildly dehydrated,” she said. She still recommends drinking eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day. The Mayo Clinic recommends adding to that with foods that are rich in water such as soup and fruits, which can provide up to 20% of hydration needs. Vegetables, along with juice, tea and coffee, help balance water needs.