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Health Urban Myths

GNC

GNC

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Aug 25, 2001
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In FT 386's Mythconceptions column, it claims that the smell of burnt toast when there's none about meaning you're having a heart attack or stroke is absolutely untrue. It also says chest pains are not ordinarily a symptom of a heart attack. Any comments/any more of these?
 
Well, I had a heart attack last year and I got no chest pain whatsoever. The only pain I got was in my left arm and in the left side of my jaw. But after speaking to other patients on my ward and during rehab there were quite a few who had chest pain. I definitely didn’t smell burnt toast!
 
When a mate of mine had a heart attack he had a dull pain between his shoulder blades. He'd been driving for a long time and thought it was because of that - luckily he happened to be talking to a doctor at the time who gave him the once over and called an ambulance.
 
There is the one about needing to take 10,000 steps per day. That seems to have begun due to simple marketing.
 
Xanatic* said:
There is the one about needing to take 10,000 steps per day. That seems to have begun due to simple marketing.
Click to expand...

Yep ... It was an arbitrary number that became a sort of standardized meme ...

... BBC journalist Michael Mosley investigated workout myths on an episode of his weekly show “The Truth About … called, “The Truth About Getting Fit.”

Moseley’s research showed that “ten thousand steps” was firmly grounded in unscientific confusion and misunderstanding, unsupported by any sort of scientific fact.

Translation Errors

The idea that ten thousand steps was the magic number for total fitness started in the early 60s, Mosely found, when Japanese inventor Yamasa Tokei, hoping to cash in on the fitness craze surrounding the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, started marketing a pedometer.

The device bore the name “Manpo-Kei,” which indeed does mean “ten-thousand-step meter.”

The manufacturer based the device’s name on some research by Dr. Yoshiro Hatano from Kyushu University of Health and Welfare.

Dr. Hatano didn’t want to see the traditionally fit Japanese people become Americanized—he saw American habits like watching baseball instead of playing sports, eating too much, and walking too little as undesirable.

He decided that Japanese people, whom he said took 3,500 to 5,000 steps a day on average, would burn an extra 500 calories each day if they took 10,000 steps ...

Dr. Hatano might have been a scientist, but his opinions were not scientific. He wanted to fight obesity, and he wanted a message which people could easily accept and act on. ...
Click to expand...

FULL STORY: https://www.theepochtimes.com/ten-m...or-those-walking-towards-fitness_2428793.html
 
I think one of the biggest myths is that we (humans) 'need' carbohydrates to eat healthily. Provided we have some fat stores, and eat some protein and fat we can function very well, if not better, than when processing carbs into sugar. All carbs, even complex brown organic rice, basically end up as glucose in the body.

I follwed a ketogenic 'low-carb and high-fat' diet for 2 years until I fell off the wagon early this year (various reasons). I lost 26kg, my slightly raised blood sugars dropped to normal and my bloods were fine. Two GPs have told me that although the NHS is 'not allowed' to endorse it, they are of the opinion it's a good choice for anyone with type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance and PCOS.

It's not a licence to eat lard (although lard is still 'healthier' than processed vegetable oils) but it does work.

The other myth is that it's essential to eat several times a day. Nope. As early humans we as a species could have periods of feast and famine, and intermittent fasting can be quite useful even today.
 
Apparently the number 10,000 was also chosen because the japanese symbol for 10,000 looks like a man walking.
 
Xanatic* said:
Apparently the number 10,000 was also chosen because the japanese symbol for 10,000 looks like a man walking.
Click to expand...
Does it? To me, it looks like a chair.
 
GNC said:
... It also says chest pains are not ordinarily a symptom of a heart attack. ...
Click to expand...

From the Mayo Clinic:
Not all people who have heart attacks have the same symptoms or have the same severity of symptoms. Some people have mild pain; others have more severe pain. Some people have no symptoms; for others, the first sign may be sudden cardiac arrest. However, the more signs and symptoms you have, the greater the likelihood you're having a heart attack.
Click to expand...

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/heart-attack/symptoms-causes/syc-20373106
 
Xanatic* said:
There is the one about needing to take 10,000 steps per day. That seems to have begun due to simple marketing.
Click to expand...

I've been a long time Samsung Galaxy phone user. A few years ago I activated the Samsung Health app that come pre-installed on each phone to roughly measure how many steps I took a day. I did this more out of boredom than any other reason.
When I had the Galaxy S8 it only suggested 6000 steps was my daily target. As soon as I upgraded to the S9+ ( I now have an S10+) the suggested step count jumped up to 10,000 steps daily. Perhaps it thinks I'm just a lazy bastard who needs to be more active.
 
A
Bigphoot2 said:
When a mate of mine had a heart attack he had a dull pain between his shoulder blades. He'd been driving for a long time and thought it was because of that - luckily he happened to be talking to a doctor at the time who gave him the once over and called an ambulance.
Click to expand...
A colleague once explained that his father thought he was suffering indigestion and used this as a good reason to pop into his local boozer to try and wash it away with a couple of Rums with Peppermint (rum and pep). He got worse despite imbibing this magical elixir, eventually went to hospital to be told he was in the throes of a heart attack.
 
My heart attack was initially diagnosed as muscle ache from taking too strong cholesterol medication. Fortunately the second time I went to see the doctor about the hellish aching in my back, it was a different GP. He did an on the spot ECG, and sent me straight to hospital.

I heard it was the smell of burnt rubber that was the sign of a potential stroke. No smell of anything when I had my TIA in 2007 (same year as the stroke, not a good year).
 
Tempest63 said:
A

A colleague once explained that his father thought he was suffering indigestion and used this as a good reason to pop into his local boozer to try and wash it away with a couple of Rums with Peppermint (rum and pep). He got worse despite imbibing this magical elixir, eventually went to hospital to be told he was in the throes of a heart attack.
Click to expand...
Maybe the alcohol saved him? It dilates blood vessels.
 
James_H said:
I heard in Japan it's 13 a day.

Another is eight glasses of Water a day.
Click to expand...

Beer is mostly water...

Lord Lucan said:
I'm happy to accept that a bag of chips/crisps be counted as 1 serve of vegetables. Myths be damned.
Click to expand...

'As long as they are none of your soggy chips - I want them crisp and golden brown'
 
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Lord Lucan said:
I've been a long time Samsung Galaxy phone user. A few years ago I activated the Samsung Health app that come pre-installed on each phone to roughly measure how many steps I took a day. I did this more out of boredom than any other reason.
When I had the Galaxy S8 it only suggested 6000 steps was my daily target. As soon as I upgraded to the S9+ ( I now have an S10+) the suggested step count jumped up to 10,000 steps daily. Perhaps it thinks I'm just a lazy bastard who needs to be more active.
Click to expand...

My Galaxy phone often reminds me that I've attained my goal of 10,000 steps*. Hadn't installed or knowingly activated anything like that so it did puddle me until now!

*Halfway through a shift on some busy days.
 
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