Health industry is extremely complicated and along with complication comes the myths too.
Some myths are due to common traditions and some are belief based. Let’s go through the list of most common health myths that exists even in modern day today.
1.) Pregnant Women should not exercise
We often keep hearing that pregnant women should not be exercising.
Latest research and studies show that mild exercise for pregnant women is extremely beneficial in the initial stages.
Post the 6 months of pregnancy it’s then the exercise or strenuous activity should be reduced.
Regular low intensity exercise can lead to normal delivery, thereby avoiding delivery through Scissoring.
2.) Food high in Fat Content is bad and Low fat food is better
Here is another myth, a lot of people somehow believe eating food that are high on fat increases weight and causes obesity.
That’s absolutely false!
Our body needs essential fatty acids and fat in limited quantity actually helps us.
Having said that anything in excess is not good for health, just because cheese is good for health you cannot be eating cheese all the time. If you do this then it can choke the heart arteries.
So the bottom line is feel free to have healthy fats like cheese, Tofu, Paneer, Indian Cow milk, Ghee and Organic butter.
But do not over dose yourself with these healthy fats, In fact fatty items such as Salmon Fish, Paneer and cheese actually helps you to lose weight.
If consuming fat gives rise to weight then Ketogenic Diet wouldn’t even exist. As the science behind ketogenic diet is to feed your body with fat and protein and starve it of Carbohydrates.
And we know it for a fact that this actually works. When we starve our body for Carbohydrates our body tends to go into Ketosis process.
What this means is that, our body starts to utilize the unburned fat as a source of energy this results in weight loss.
Lastly, even though Fat is good that does not mean you can ignore the fresh juices and veggies.
Balanced diet is always a good choice and stay away from the myth that says Fat is not good. Fat is good but Oil Isn’t.
It’s the oil in your food that elevates the cholesterol and triglyceride levels, fats such as paneer, cheese and Desi cow ghee in limited quantity reduces the Serum cholesterol levels.
3.) Crunches and sit-up’s helps to burn abdominal fat
This is the most common misunderstanding amongst youngsters.
Every now and then I keep hearing, how many crunches are needed to get 6 pack abs? Well the answer to this is even thousands can’t help unless you start focusing on your diet.
Diet does not mean avoiding Fat.
Your diet should include Protein, Fats and extremely limited intake of Carbohydrates.
When on a mission to lose fat from your belly you need to avoid Oil and junk food such as Pizza’s and burgers at all cost.
If you like to have cheese, do not eat cheese by cooking it on high temperatures. Instead consume cheese as it is.
Similarly when cooking tofu or paneer do not fry it, roasting works well but frying will ruin the whole process.
A Quick Tip: When on a mission to lose weight avoid drinking soft drinks such as Coke, Pepsi or Soda. All these are acidic in nature and has negative effects. In fact consumption of these drinks could lead to inflammation, obesity and even cancer.
4.) Hands bigger than face means you have cancer
There are tons of articles and discussion on this topic, most people say those who have hand size bigger than their face are vulnerable to cancer.
This is a pure hoax and one of the biggest myths ever.
Research and studies shows there are no correlation between these.
There are many factors that contribute to cancer, having a hand size bigger than face by no means lead to cancer.
5.) Weight is pre-determined by metabolism
It is true that metabolism plays a very important role in weight management but saying weight is only pre-determined by metabolism is a complete myth.
Being overweight and underweight is determined by many factors, such as Genetics, lifestyle, Diseases and metabolism.
While fixing your metabolism is half the job done, you also need to be consistent with the dietary approach. Therefore, metabolism alone is not responsible for your weight or BMI score.
It is rightly said in Ayurveda, to be healthy one must have balanced vatta, pitta and kappa. The real weight loss medicine or supplement is the food we eat.
Ayurveda has a perfect solution to obesity. In Ayurveda you will find most of the food that has healing properties.
6.) Cold can be cured by simply consuming Vitamin C
Normal Cough and cold generally goes away on its own, thanks to our immune system.
Having said that cold can be cured only through vitamin c is an absolute myth.
When cold and cough reaches it’s extreme, treatment through anti-biotics becomes the only choice.
Vitamin C plays a vital role in repairing the body but treatment based on Vitamin C is not a wise choice as there is more that you would need to do.
Apart from vitamin C diet plays the key role in well being.
In order to make vitamin C the treatment method, one must go on alkaline diet and keep the alkaline level of blood slightly higher than the average human in order to achieve cure.
So a cure cannot be achieved solely through vitamin c. Furthermore, Vitamin C cannot be a replacement to standard antibiotics.
If you need a natural replacement to antibiotics then there are a ton of them in Ayurveda, Unani and homeopathy.
7.) Low Calorie Foods are healthy
Technically, low calorie food can help you achieve that calorie deficit diet to lose weight.
But is it healthy?
Always go with science based approach, i.e. to reduce the carb intake and give the body everything.
Starving doesn’t make any sense since our body is sub consciously intelligent, in fact extremely intelligent.
Starving the body would mean forcing it to go into fasting mode.
And forcing the body to go to fasting mode would force your body to energy saving mode. This means anything you give to your body it will save as fat and this way you will end up putting on more weight.
Fasting is good for health only once a while but making fasting a habit is a dangerous thing to do.
It’s good to have low calorie food as a snack but give your body what it needs and stop what it doesn’t need.
If you are not an athlete or do not do any physical activity there is not point giving your body those extra carbs.
8.) Eating after workout doesn’t matter as it burns fat
Feeling hungry after workout is a normal thing but eating anything after workout is a disaster.
It’s a disaster since it ruins all your hard work.
A glass of fresh vegetable smoothie or even a grass whey protein would help.
But if you have junk such as deep fried food or oily stuff, trust me that’s not what your body needs.
Your body needs nutrients and essential fatty acids, therefore avoid sugar and junk food after workouts.
9.) Coffee has too much negative side effects
Multiple studies have already proven that Coffee in extremely limited quantity is beneficial for health.
When on a weight loss mission dieticians commonly advise to consume black coffee.
Why?
The reason is its antioxidants and metabolism boosting properties.
Black coffee is good for health in limited quantity. On the other hand coffee mixed with milk is a disastrous combination.
I know you may have been in coffee shops before and over there milk based coffee is a common thing but trust me this combination is a dangerous combo as it increases the acidity too.
Coffee not only benefits you when you consume it but it also helps you to detoxify the body.
You can detoxify your body by preparing coffee enema.
Preparing coffee enema can boost the glutathione levels up to 200%
10.) Too much running can damage your knees
I have always heard that exercise is good for health.
But these days’ new theories are coming up and one of them says exercise damages your knees.
Let me tell you, it’s the opposite.
Running actually helps you to keep your knees healthy.
Exercise benefits over a long term, it can keep you away from arthritis and joint pains.
As I said earlier anything over can be dangerous, exercise is good but make sure you give your body the rest it needs.
Remember to maintain a healthy body all you need is 70% healthy diet, 20% exercise and 10% rest. That’s the golden rule of thumb
11.) Eating Late at night will put extra weight
Late night eating does not add more weight the actual science behind this is that, when you eat high calorie food, junk or oily food your body finds it hard to digest as at that time it goes into resting mode.
So eat when you are hungry but make sure you are not eating things which your body does not like.
To my knowledge avoid high calorie food at night, consume light stuff.
You remember the low calorie point discussed above? This is the perfect time to consume low calorie food items.
12.) Consuming multivitamin supplements helps to keep you fit
Synthetic Multivitamins have never benefited human body.
It’s advisable to get all the essential phytonutrients, vitamins and minerals through the food you eat.
Multivitamin supplement is a stranger to our body just like chemical based antibiotics.
If a person A consumes multivitamin supplement and a person B consumes Organic Vegetable smoothie, guess who will benefit the most.
Off Course Person B.
Nutrients in Natural plant based green smoothie is unmatched and no synthetic supplements can fulfil the gap.
Therefore stick to natural food items and avoid the so called multivitamins.
13.) Multiple mini meals a day can boost your metabolism
Follow the natures call always.
Eat when you are hungry and never starve your body.
Eat what’s right for your body and your body will never misbehave.
In fact your metabolism gets disrupted when you don’t give your body what it needs at the right time. The idea is to keep it simple.
Don’t over eat and don’t starve yourself.
Mini meals does not work, in fact it has never worked. Mini meals are prescribed to those who have hard time digesting.
But consuming mini meals for the purpose of weight loss and boosting metabolism is a bad idea.
14.) Keto and Paleo diet is the only way to lose weight
While Keto and Paleo diet are highly result oriented, it is not the only way to lose weight.
There are other ways too…
Dietary approach such as full vegan and alkaline diet actually out ranks the other counter parts.
Alkaline diet and full vegan diet has proven to be twice effective as compared to conventional keto, paleo and Mediterranean diet.
In fact alkaline diet has also shown signs of reversal in cancer and inflammation.
The only challenge with the alkaline diet is the taste of raw veggies. If you can sacrifice your taste this is the best choice for you.
The other dietary approach that you can take is elimination of oil from whichever food you cook.
Adopting a zero oil approach can not only help you to lose weight but also help you to reduce the cholesterol and triglyceride levels (Zero Oil Diet is extremely suitable for Heart patients).
15.) Blood Pressure readings above 120/80 is high
This is the biggest myth of all.
As per medical science any readings above 120/80 is considered to be elevated.
Well let me tell you that’s completely wrong.
What’s normal for you may not be normal for others.
This benchmark of blood pressure is set by medical research, these research have a pattern.
The pattern goes as, taking the readings of thousands of patients and taking the average by calculating it.
Did you know what Mahatma Gandhi’s average blood pressure readings were at that time? It was over 180 and it was absolutely normal for him and guess what he did not die of any heart ailments or stroke.
Did you know what is the average blood pressure readings of people is Norway? Its 150/90 so by that logic everyone is hypertensive, isn’t it?
Wrong!
Its all about how good you feel, I am not saying blood pressure is is a myth but what I certainly know is that the readings of 120/80 is a big myth.
In 1990’s the benchmark for blood pressure was anything above 160/90 it came down to 150/100 in early 2000 and gradually dropping to 140/90 and lastly 120/80.
I won’t be surprised if it further drops to 115/75.
So the bottom line is, Approach a doctor if you are not feeling well and take dietary measures to keep the pressure in control. Drug therapy should only the last option.
16.) Cholesterol kills you
Cholesterol is being advertised as a life threatening enzyme.
To be honest everybody needs Cholesterol.
Without cholesterol we won’t be able to repair our endothelial linings and other pair works.
The problem here is what is causing the cholesterol, problem is not with the cholesterol itself.
Your liver is producing cholesterol because your brain is sending the signal that it needs cholesterol to heal.
Therefore, the approach should be to reduce the damage so that excess cholesterol is not produced.
Heart attack is triggered when there is a wear and tear in the arteries, this wear and tear is repaired by the cholesterol. So the point is when there is an excess tearing and damage excess cholesterol is sent to repair it.
So in a nutshell, it’s all about diet again, go for natural and organic food, eat lot of veggies and stay away from cholesterol and heart ailments.
Remember one thing, Dietary cholesterol does not affect Serum cholesterol levels.
17.) Chronic diseases are incurable
Not all chronic diseases are incurable.
Chronic diseases are mostly due to two reasons.
- Toxicity
- Deficiency
Toxicity
When we say toxicity, most of the allergies are triggered due to pollution. People suffering from allergies like sneezing, cold and cough take anti-biotics for relief.
But that is not a long term solution.
If you need a cure, you need to detoxify yourself by consuming things proven to purify the liver.
Veggies such as Bottle gourd, bitter bottle gourd, carrots, beet juice, coriander leaves and Cinnamon water are proven to detoxify the liver.
Furthermore, you can make a use of Coffee enema to detoxify your body.
Deficiency
In this case deficiency refers to deficiency of Vitamins and minerals.
This deficiency happens when we stop taking organic fruits and veggies over a period of time.
When you start taking processed food and reduce the intake of fresh veggies and fruits responsible to fill the nutritional gap it starts to show up in form of chronic ailments.
So if somehow you can fill the gap by fixing the toxicity and Nutritional deficiency chronic ailments won’t exist.
Remember, don’t confuse chronic ailments to congenital defects.
18.) Nose bleed can be cured by Tilting head back
Bleeding of nose can be due to multiple reasons. Having said that tilting your head to avoid bleeding can have some serious implications.
Tilting your head back to avoid nose bleed can cause blood clots.
Instead let the blood come out and if in case there is excess bleeding see a doctor.
Conclusion
Out of all these health myths which one did you face or have found to be most common, don’t forget to mention it on the comment box below.