Surprisingly, even among competent and highly qualified doctors, stereotypes are common that have been transmitted from doctors to patients for decades. And here are the top 5 of the most useless and outdated medical advice that you should not follow.
5. Drink at least 8 glasses of water per day
This myth came to us from abroad, in American medicine it is called the “8x8 rule” - to drink at least 8 glasses of water, one glass 8 times a day.
However, the U.S. National Medical Academy offers another option - 2.7 liters for women and 3.7 liters for men every day. Although this looks like a significantly larger volume of water than the 8 × 8 rule, it is important to remember that this recommendation includes total fluid intake (from soup, tea, coffee, etc.).
In other words, many of the drinks and foods that we consume contribute to this daily goal, including coffee, tea, juice, milk, fruits and vegetables, to name but a few. Although approximately 20 percent of your water intake may come from food, the rest should be from liquids other than sweetened drinks.
So what can affect your water balance?
- Training As a rule, any activity that produces sweat requires replenishment of fluid in the body. For an ordinary athlete, this means drinking water before, during and after training, in accordance with personal thirst signals. However, for high-intensity workouts lasting more than an hour, sports drinks are a more effective way to make up for lost electrolyte.
- Climate. A humid climate and high altitudes increase the risk of dehydration and require additional fluid intake.
- Your state of health. The human body quickly loses water during fever, diarrhea, or vomiting.
- Pregnancy and lactation. Both processes require increased fluid intake, since adequate hydration can help prevent hemorrhoids, constipation, and urinary tract infections. Pregnant women are advised to drink about 2.4 liters of fluid every day, and women who are breastfeeding should increase their fluid intake to about 3.1 liters daily.
4. Breakfast is a must, so as not to gain excess weight
Many dieticians repeat the recommendation that you probably heard from your mother in childhood. You must eat in the morning, this will not overeat at lunch. This means that excess fat reserves will not be deposited on the waist and hips.
However, here's what a research team from Australia found out after analyzing controlled trials published between January 1990 and January 2018.
- There is no evidence that breakfast contributes to weight loss by effectively burning calories in the morning and afternoon and preventing subsequent overeating.
- Skipping breakfast will not affect your hunger.
- A meta-analysis of the results of the study showed a slight difference in weight in favor of participants who skipped breakfast. They were, on average, 0.44 kg lighter than those who regularly ate in the morning.
The authors of the study made the following conclusion from their work: when recommending breakfast for weight loss in adults, care must be taken, as this can lead to the opposite effect.
3. Vision spoils from working at a computer or watching TV
Do you know the feeling of “sand” in the eyes during prolonged work at the computer? To me - yes, and indeed there is a feeling that my eyes are slowly "collapsing."
However, the unpleasant sensations of a foreign body in the eyes are caused by the fact that for a long time looking at the screen we rarely blink. The eye muscles overexert, the mucous membrane becomes dry.
If you work at a computer or watch movies for a long time in a poorly lit room, looking at a glare monitor or moving very close to the screen (less than 50 cm), your eyesight really "sits". If you remove these factors, and even try to blink more often, and regularly do exercises for the eyes, then vision will be normal.
2. Drink an antiviral for colds
One of the most useless advice from doctors. No wonder they say that if you do not treat a cold, it goes away in 7 days, and if treated, then in a week. There are no antiviral agents that accelerate recovery from colds.
However, this cannot be said about all acute respiratory viral infections (acute respiratory viral diseases). For example, in the treatment of A-type flu, some antiviral drugs are indeed effective.
1. Do not wet the Mantoux test
Probably after reading the name you rolled your eyes like Tony Stark from a famous meme. And they thought: is this myth still in use? Oddly enough, yes. Basically, among the elderly doctors of the Soviet school. Sometimes this advice takes unexpected forms, like: you can’t only wet the first day, you can wet it slightly, but you can’t swim, etc.
Earlier in the USSR, the presence of tuberculosis infection in the body was detected using the Pirke test, in which it was necessary to “scratch” the skin and apply tuberculin solution to it. It was impossible to wet Pirke’s sample so as not to “wash” tuberculin. And the Mantoux test is done intradermally, however, fears about water procedures and incorrect results of the immunological test passed on to her by inheritance.
Although you can wet the Mantoux testDo not rub or wrap it with cling film or adhesive. Otherwise, irritation will occur, which will cause an increase in the reaction, and the doctor may find the tuberculosis test positive.
