Myths May Be Harmful To Your Health
Feb. 18, 2009— -- As we've compiled new sections for OnCall+ and asked the experts questions, a number of misconceptions that many people hold have come up.
And as we've uncovered these statements, we've tried to debunk -- or confirm -- these myths.
But where do they come from? How do these myths (and most of them turn out to be false) enter the conventional wisdom of health?
Some of the myths are true, but only for a small number of people.
"It's important to remember, in some of these myths, that it's different for a person who's been injured as opposed to someone who's healthy and not injured," Dr. Sherwin Ho, an orthopedic surgeon and director of the sports medicine fellowship at the University of Chicago Medical Center, told us when we spoke to him about exercise myths.
"[For] those that are injured, some of these myths are actually true, and that's where they came from," he said.
That certainly was the case with the idea that you have to stretch before exercising.
While Ho said he would recommend some stretching for a patient with a history of injury, it might actually harm a healthy patient.
The best warm-up is not stretching, but a milder, slower version of the exercise you are about to do. Stretching afterward may help with flexibility, but stretching beforehand won't do anything to prevent injury.
And that isn't the only area where following what you may have heard without checking it out could harm you.
Though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tries to get many people vaccinated against influenza each year, many skip their shots out of fear that the vaccination will give them the flu.
But, as Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of the Vanderbilt Medical School Department of Preventive Medicine, notes, the vaccine doesn't contain a full flu virus.
"There's no way that the shot can give you a complete influenza virus that can then make you ill," he said.
In this case, he speculated, people may catch a cold around the time they are vaccinated and think the two are connected, but they are mistaken.
