MYTHS AND FACTS OF MEDICINE

The Myth: Teething causes a fever

Scientific studies have been done in the area of teething which show no correlation at all between fever and teething. If your baby is suffering from a new tooth and they also have a fever, it is advisable to check for other causes of the fever. The same is true of diarrhea which is also often blamed on teething in infants. It is always better to be safe than sorry when dealing with the health of children.

The Myth: Back pain should be treated with bed rest

The opposite is actually true in this case. Bed rest can prevent the lower back from fully recovering – or at the very least, delay the recovery significantly. Patients who continue to engage in ordinary activities recover faster and usually have fewer problems with recurring pain and other back troubles. Interestingly, many studies have shown that this is not just true of back problems, but also many other medical problems. Thirty-nine independent studies found bed rest to be more harmful than good in a broad range of illnesses.

The Myth: Eating at night makes you fat

Secret snackers rejoice! This is a complete myth. It doesn’t matter what time of day you eat, as long as you eat only the total calories that you burn each day, you will not gain weight. If you eat fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight, and if you eat more calories, you will gain. It is as simple as that. Having said that, the routine of three meals a day at the same time each day can have other benefits in life (routine is good and it helps humans work more effectively), but snacks at night are no worse than snacks in the morning or afternoon.

The Myth: It is harder to lose weight than to gain weight

Actually – once you get your head around a new eating pattern, math and science are working in your favor. It is mathematically easier to lose than to gain. For example, if you eat 3,500 calories more than you burn, you will gain 0.3 pounds (0.14 kg), but if you burn 3,500 calories more than you eat, you will lose 1 pound (0.45 kg). Also, if you want to lose weight, you can expose yourself to significant changes in temperature which speeds up your metabolism. Finally, the above information is based on a pure fat diet – variations to the math occur when you introduce other types of food.

The Myth:Chocolate and Fried Foods Give You Acne 

Some speculate that this myth dates back to the baby-boom generation, who had worse acne than their parents and also more access to chocolate and fried foods. Wherever this idea came from, it's wrong. Pimples form when oil glands under the skin produce too much of a waxy oil called sebum, which the body uses to keep skin lubricated. But when excess sebum and dead skin cells block pores, that area of the skin gets irritated, swollen, and turns red -- the telltale signs of a pimple. It is unknown why sebaceous glands produce excess sebum, but hormones are the prime suspects, which explains why teenagers are affected more than others. Stress and heredity may also be factors, but chocolate bars and onion rings are off the hook.

The Myth: Eating spicy food causes ulcers

A type of bacteria causes ulcers. Helicobacter pylori causes almost two-thirds of all peptic ulcer cases. Taking non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, such as aspirin or ibuprofen, causes most of the other cases. Using tobacco and drinking alcohol also increase the risk for ulcers.
Spicy foods can only worsen the effects of existing ulcers, as can stress.
If you have symptoms of dyspepsia or ulcer disease, such as a burning pain in the gut that comes and goes for days or weeks, you should see a doctor to be tested for the bacteria. Current medication treatments that include antibiotics have an 80 to 90 percent success rate in treating ulcers.

 Myths  patients have!!!

Diabetic patients who refuse to take insulin:They believe that if they take insulin, then they are admitting that have diabetes, but if they just take pills, then they only have a "sugar problem".

Patients whose blood pressure is normalized with medicine asking if they can stop their medicine now that their blood pressure is under control, or stop taking their statin now that their cholesterol is below 200. 

Thousands of wives telling their husbands what to eat, not realizing that eating cholesterol (egg yolks) does not raise your cholesterol as much as eating animal fat does. For that matter, french fries and potato chips, both of which contain no cholesterol, contain enough fat to raise your cholesterol, and when Frito-Lay wanted to advertise their potato chips as having absolutely no cholesterol (which is a true statement for any vegetable product), the FTC made them pull the ad, because they were afraid that the public would equate "no cholesterol" with " "no fat".

Patients also think that the less medicine they take, the less sick they are. So when 40mg of Zocor was replaced with the equipotent dose of 10mg of Lipitor, they were very happy, and even happier with 5mg of Crestor. And Vytorin is one pill, not two, which is also good. They also think that the less asthma medicine they can take, the less serious their asthma is, and they are forever skipping doses of inhaler and believing that their breathing is not affected.


Along with the above, the most surprised patients are those who survive a heart attack and go home on five new medicines. These many medicines do not mean that you are very ill, but rather that physicians know from experimental studies that each of these five medicines will reduce your chance of a second heart attack (and remember that the single greatest risk for having a heart attack is already having had one). The medicines are: a platelet blocker (aspirin, Plavix, or Coumadin), a beta-blocker, a statin to lower your cholesterol and stabilize any atheromatous plaques in your coronary arteries, an ACE inhibitor or an ARB, and, if you are in any heart failure at all, spironalactone. Again, these are all to reduce your chance of having a second heart attack, and should be taken exactly as prescribed.

I don't believe there is any such thing as "junk food" or "useless calories", but rather eating too much or to little. I don't care what you eat so long as you gain no weight, and have a daily multivitamin to cover whatever you may be missing


Some patients will always see the glass as half full, and others as half empty. (And I see the glass as too large, but I generally think "out of the box".)


The bottom line: When it comes to your health, get the facts.