p2pnet - rss feed: Medical myths: fact or fiction?
p2pnet news | Off Topic:- Here’s a medical fact, tried and tested:
Mobile phones create considerable electromagnetic interference in hospitals.
Right?
And here are six more:
- People should drink at least eight glasses of water a day
- We use only 10% of our brains
- Hair and fingernails continue to grow after death
- Shaving hair causes it to grow back faster, darker, or coarser
- Reading in dim light ruins your eyesight
- Eating turkey makes you especially drowsy
Wrong, say doctors Rachel C Vreeman, a fellow in children’s health services research, and Aaron E Carroll, an assistant professor of paediatrics.
The two went online to check these well-known medical ‘facts’ and found them wanting.
Writing in the British Medical Journal, “We used Medline and Google to search for evidence to support or refute each of these claims,” they say.
On the medical dangers created by mobile phone use in hospitals:
In a search by www.snopes.com we could not find any cases of death caused by the use of a mobile phone in a hospital or medical facility. Less serious incidents, including false alarms on monitors, malfunctions in infusion pumps, and incorrect readings on cardiac monitors, have occasionally been reported. Although no references or dates are given, one government website published an anecdote in 2002 describing how use of a mobile phone in an intensive care unit resulted in an unintended bolus of adrenaline (epinephrine) from an infusion pump. After publication of a journal article citing more than 100 reports of suspected electromagnetic interference with medical devices before 1993, the Wall Street Journal published a front page article highlighting this danger. Since that time, many hospitals banned the use of mobile phones, perpetuating the belief.
Despite the concerns, there is little evidence. In the United Kingdom, early studies showed that mobile phones interfered with only 4% of devices and only at a distance of <1 meter.w58 w59 Less than 0.1% showed serious effects. At the Mayo Clinic in 2005, in 510 tests performed with 16 medical devices and six mobile telephones, the incidence of clinically important interference was 1.2%. Similarly rigorous testing in Europe found minimal interference and only at distances less than 1 meter. Recent technological improvements may be lessening even this minimal interference. A 2007 study, examining mobile phones “used in a normal way,” found no interference of any kind during 300 tests in 75 treatment rooms.w62 In contrast, a large survey of anaesthesiologists suggested that use of mobile phones by doctors was associated with reduced risk of medical error or injury resulting from delays in communication (relative risk 0.78; 95% confidence interval 0.62 to 0.96).
What about the idea we use only 10% of our brains?
“Some sources attribute this claim to Albert Einstein, but no such reference or statement by Einstein has ever been recorded,” say Vreeman and Carroll, going on:
“This myth arose as early as 1907, propagated by multiple sources advocating the power of self improvement and tapping into each person’s unrealised latent abilities.”
But, “Evidence from studies of brain damage, brain imaging, localisation of function, microstructural analysis, and metabolic studies show that people use much more than 10% of their brains. Studies of patients with brain injury suggest that damage to almost any area of the brain has specific and lasting effects on mental, vegetative, and behavioural capabilities.
Numerous types of brain imaging studies show that no area of the brain is completely silent or inactive.
“The many functions of the brain are highly localised, with different tasks allocated to different anatomical regions. Detailed probing of the brain has failed to identify the “non-functioning” 90%. Even micro-level localisation, isolating the response of single neurones, reveals no gaps or inactive areas. Metabolic studies, tracking differential rates of cellular metabolism within the brain, reveal no dormant areas.”
Eating turkey makes people especially drowsy?
“The presence of tryptophan in turkey may be the most commonly known fact pertaining to amino acids and food,” says the BMJ article, going on:
“Scientific evidence shows that tryptophan is involved in sleep and mood control and can cause drowsiness. L-tryptophan has been marketed as a sleep aid.
“The myth is the idea that consuming turkey (and the tryptophan it contains) might particularly predispose someone to sleepiness. Actually, turkey does not contain an exceptional amount of tryptophan.
Turkey, chicken, and minced beef contain nearly equivalent amounts of tryptophan (about 350 mg per 115 g), while other common sources of protein, such as pork or cheese, contain more tryptophan per gram than turkey.
Conclude the the two doctors:
“Despite their popularity, all of these medical beliefs range from unproved to untrue. Although this was not a systematic review of either the breadth of medical myths or of all available evidence related to each myth, the search methods produced a large number of references. While some of these myths simply do not have evidence to confirm them, others have been studied and proved wrong.”
And they add a warning:
“Physicians would do well to understand the evidence supporting their medical decision making. They should at least recognise when their practice is based on tradition, anecdote, or art. While belief in the described myths is unlikely to cause harm, recommending medical treatment for which there is little evidence certainly can. Speaking from a position of authority, as physicians do, requires constant evaluation of the validity of our knowledge.”
Also See:
British Medical Journal - Medical myths, December 22, 2007
Want to help p2pnet stay online? Please click here.
Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy!
Subscribe to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile - http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php
December 22nd, 2007 at 6:22 pm
Slight alterations cause these myths to make sense.
*The RIAA drinks at least eight glasses of water a day and won’t share
*The RIAA uses only 10% of their brains…