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Weird, funny, unbelievable? Like every area of our life, medicine has grown up with stories, anecdotes and myths. Legends created to explain the unexplained and cure the incurable. Medical facts and myths are constantly verified by science, condemning some to oblivion and finding grains of truth in others. As long as the human body is a mystery to us, at least in a few percent, we will create new stories. In the meantime, let’s take a look at a select few.
- Ketchup was supposed to be a remedy for diarrhea and indigestion, but also for jaundice and rheumatism
- Later it turned out that, as with many other “miraculous” drugs, also here we were dealing with a fraud
- Scientists are also looking at other unthinkable theories. For example, whether blondes are actually not very smart
- More information can be found on the Onet homepage
Ketchup pills are a panacea for popular ailments
Let’s go back in time to the 30s. Americans then regarded tomatoes as “the devil’s fruit”, and those who dared to eat them raw reportedly died in agony. Ketchup at that time was a brown sauce made from fish or mushrooms. Here’s a doctor from Ohio, John Bennet, adds tomatoes to it and then announces to the world that he has invented a great cure for diarrhea and indigestion.
To reap the financial benefits of his invention, Dr. Bennet works with Archibald Miles, a man who also holds a PhD degree, but is in fact a scammer selling questionable drugs. Miles starts the trade with Bennet’s invention, promising patients that in addition to diarrhea and indigestion, he will also heal jaundice, headaches, rheumatism, cough and colds. Business has been booming for 15 years, and competition begins to counterfeit ketchup pills and extracts on a massive scale. However, it mainly markets laxatives, not containing tomatoes at all, while creating a legend about their effectiveness in the treatment of scurvy and even bone fractures. The ketchup medicine balloon bursts in 1850.
The rest of the text is below the video.
Currently, although ketchup is undoubtedly one of the most popular sauces in the world, no one even thinks of treating anything with it. And when consumers put it on French fries, they wonder if it contains too many preservatives that could harm them.
Laughter is good for health
So far, this popular opinion seems to be true. It is confirmed, for example, by the experiments carried out in California by Dr. Lee Berka of the Loma Linda School of Medicine, who studied comedy viewers. He proved that frequent laughter reduces stress (decrease in catecholamine levels) and improves the functioning of our immune system. In his work, Dr. Berk also writes: “Our discoveries show that the physiological effects of watching a funny comedy for an hour last from 12 to 24 hours.” Unfortunately, many scientists accuse him of presenting in his publications at best the biological response of the organism to comedy films, and the experiments conducted on several volunteers and described in three short papers can hardly be called objective.
But the fact that prolonged hearty laughter releases a cocktail of immune-boosting chemicals is also underlined by other researchers. Composed of this a salutary cocktail includes, among others: NK cells (natural killer), endorphins, serotonin, growth hormone or interferon-gamma (IFN, a group of proteins responsible for fighting pathogens – viruses, bacteria, parasites and cancer cells). And they have a decisive influence on repelling attacks of viruses and bacteria.
Robert Provine, a professor of psychology at the University of Maryland who died last year and a renowned laughter researcher, in his book “Laughter: A Scientific Investigation” notes that laughter is a regular series of short syllables, spelled “ha-ha”, “ho-ho” or “hi-hi”. And these syllables belong to the universal dictionary and as such are recognizable in all cultures, connecting the inhabitants of the whole Earth. Professor Provine advised, “Laugh as much as you can!”
This advice should be heeded especially by adults who laugh just 15 times a day, as opposed to children who do it as many as 400 times.
Another American, Dr.Michael Miller, author of the work entitled “The Effects of Joyful Laughter on the Human Cardiovascular System”, recommends a minimum daily dose of laughter, 15 – 20 minutes, in order to counteract heart disease.
The benefits of laughter have also been appreciated in Poland. During a lecture at a conference organized by the ISKRA Depression Prevention Association, psychologist Hanna Barbara Godzińska mentioned a number of positive health aspects related to sincere laughter, such as oxygenation of the body, better blood supply to organs, stimulation of the immune system, as well as psychological benefits – easier networking, coping deal with difficulties and distance from oneself and the world.
Gelotherapy, or laughter therapy, has been a recognized form of therapy since 1987, and it is used, among others, in the treatment of depression.
Marta Boczkowska, a health psychologist, suggests that even a simple smile can do us well.
“As early as the nineteenth century, the psychologist William James advanced the thesis that smiling has a beneficial effect on our state of mind,” he says. What’s more, he believed that a smile was not so much an expression of positive emotions as its trigger. So by putting our lips in a smile, we feel better. Many studies, such as Schnall and Laider in 2003 and Ekman and Friesen in 1978, confirm that facial expression affects areas in the brain responsible for emotions. Smiling not only makes us feel happier, it also improves memory and, according to Abel and Kruger, extends life.
See also: Myths about the COVID-19 coronavirus [INFOGRAPHICS]
The smell of fear in the air
When reading detective stories or horror novels, we often come across a sentence like “you could feel his fear” or “the smell of fear was in the air”. This is not a literary fantasy at all.
Stress causes our body to release a characteristic scent. In addition a man sweaty with fear smells completely different than the one who sweats due to increased physical exertion.
In 2009, scientists from the Stony Brook University School of Medicine in New York conducted an experiment on three groups of volunteers. They ordered the first to run intensively for 20 minutes, while the second was to perform a parachute jump (of course, accompanied by an instructor). Finally, the members of the third group were given the task of sniffing the randomly selected T-shirts of people from the first two groups. It turned out that the sweaty clothing of the parachute jumpers activated the amygdala in the brains of the third group. It plays a major role in the anxiety reactions that arise as a result of stimuli that we perceive as threatening. But sniffing the runners sweat had no repercussions.
Besides, it is not the only connection between the sense of smell and emotions. In 2012, fourteen young people at the University of Wisconsin-Madison were presented with three types of smells, including those that induce anxiety. The subjects were monitored (brain magnetic resonance imaging, breathing and skin electrical conductivity – an indicator of emotional arousal during an anxiety reaction). At the end of the experiment, participants were asked to rate their anxiety level. It turned out that the better the subjects distinguished unpleasant odors, the stronger their anxiety response was.
He felt his
Dr. med. Piotr Rapiejko in his work entitled The “sense of smell” highlights the role of our personal fragrances in pairing. Well, if partners have the same HLA (genetically determined system of leukocyte antigens), the risk of difficulty getting pregnant and miscarriage increases. When our sense of smell is functioning properly, we will choose someone with a different HLA for our other half. And we recognize it, for example, by the smell emitted by its sweat glands. But it doesn’t stop there.
HLA proteins are found in a fragment of DNA called the major histocompatibility complex (MHC). The metabolites characteristic of each MHC are excreted in the urine. Mice and other rodents can sniff them out and see the degree this way
kinship with a potential partner. Thanks to this, they choose individuals with different histocompatibility genes, which determines healthier offspring. Presumably, a human can use the sense of smell in the same way … So maybe it is not worth perfuming too much before going on the first date, so as not to overwhelm our unique scent.
Blondes are stupid and a hair doesn’t stick to a smart head
Where these beliefs came from, no one even tries to figure out. However, the stupid blonde stereotype is working and doing well.
Research conducted at the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Padua showed that natural brunettes or lockers have a higher concentration of zinc and copper in hair than blondes. They are confirmed in a 1983 publication by Brazilian scientists Dore and Pereira entitled “The influence of hair color on the concentration of zinc and copper in boys’ hair”. So these elements have to do with hair color, but what does that have to do with intelligence?
When students were tested for zinc in their bodies (based on the level of this micronutrient in their hair), it turned out that better students had higher levels of zinc than those with worse results. However, the researchers immediately noted that taking zinc will not turn an average person into Einstein, and its resources do not have to affect the IQ.
The experiment was extended by testing not only zinc but also 38 other trace elements. The focus was on the relationship between the micronutrients contained in the hair and factors such as age, gender, nutrition, hair color, and even the type of shampoo used. It turned out that the outstanding students had higher than average levels of zinc and copper in their hair, and iodine – lower. However, the relationship between mental abilities and the content of these elements in the body has not been finally clarified.
Scientists have detected the presence of toxins by examining hair since 1858. Not all of these substances are excreted in the urine. Some of them stay in the bloodstream and “record” in the hair structure.
The American Walsh Research Institute examined people with mental problems, including paranoid schizophrenia and ADHD. It was found that they, like gifted students, had a much higher concentration of copper in their blood, which was confirmed by analyzing their hair. Patients with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease also have higher levels of zinc in the blood …
It is much easier with baldness. Here the reasons are completely independent of the male IQ. While temporary hair loss can be caused by stress, hormonal changes, and certain medications, progressive hair loss is much more common and is due to an inherited condition known as androgenetic alopecia. It concerns from 50 to 80 percent. men and worsens with age.
Wide hips and a large bum are indicative of fertility
There is something to it, but it’s not so much about fertility as it is about the intelligence and health of the baby.
According to Professor William D. Lassek, co-author of numerous scientific publications and the book Why Women Need Fat, with Steven JC Gaulin, an evolutionary biology specialist, the fat in a woman’s buttocks and thighs is extremely importantbecause: “Hip fat is the building block of a baby’s brain. For proper development, the nervous system of the fetus requires a lot of fat rich in omega 3 acids. It draws it from the mother’s resources. Women have evolved to accumulate this fat until they give birth.
About 80 percent of the fatty acids needed for a baby’s brain development come from the maternal fat accumulated during pregnancy and breastfeeding, which the baby ingests with milk at birth. The number of supplies of “building blocks” therefore has a direct impact on the intelligence and health of the child.
Research by scientists from the University of Pittsburgh has shown that women with curves, in addition to smart children, also have a higher IQ and even live longer. In addition, men subconsciously find them more attractive because they are looking for partners who will give them wise and strong offspring.
At the same time, medics warn not to use the argument about smart children as an excuse for a lack of self-discipline, poor diet and cessation of physical activity. They also advise you to pay attention to the ratio of the waist circumference to the hip circumference. Big hips and full buttocks herald intelligent babies, but a wide waist may be an indirect cause of heart disease or diabetes. On the stomach, omega 6 fats accumulate, which, unfortunately, do not show any useful properties.
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