Xinhuanet Beijing December 31 ST (Wang Xi) In the Internet age, information dissemination efficiency is high, and rumors are running faster and faster. Among them, health topics have always been among the best in the rumor list, and friends circle and WeChat group are the hardest hit areas of rumors. If you blindly listen to these rumors, it is likely to damage the health of yourself and your family. In 2019, there were fresh "new rumors" and aged "old rumors".
At the end of the year, Xinhuanet Health Channel took stock of the top ten health rumors in 2019 to help you polish your eyes and protect your health.
[Proverbs 1] E-cigarettes are harmless to health and help to quit smoking.
This year is the "hot year" for e-cigarettes, which has a popular trend among young people. There is a "marketing rhetoric" saying that e-cigarettes can help smokers quit smoking, and e-cigarettes and their second-hand smoke are not harmful to health, environmental protection and lungs.
Rumor:E-cigarettes can’t stop smoking. The amount of harmful components released by e-cigarettes is relatively less than that of traditional cigarettes, which does not mean that e-cigarettes are harmless. E-cigarettes also contain nicotine. People who really have nicotine dependence (smoking addiction) need to quit smoking because of nicotine dependence. From a scientific point of view, the use of e-cigarettes is only the embodiment of smokers’ self-comfort.
Smoking is directly related to the occurrence of chronic diseases. The chronic diseases caused by smoking include lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart disease, diabetes, stroke, etc., and e-cigarettes are no exception. Many domestic and foreign studies have proved that e-cigarettes inhibit human immune system more than traditional cigarettes, significantly increasing the risk of disease. Both electronic cigarettes and traditional tobacco products will increase the risk of lung radiation, and long-term large-scale accumulation will probably lead to cancer.
[Proverbs 2] It is unhealthy to advocate a low-salt diet.
In September 2019, a foreign video titled "Anyone who suggests a low-salt diet should be sent to prison" was circulated on the Internet. According to the video, people who advocate a low-salt diet are tantamount to "murderers" and should all be put in prison. The argument given by the "experts" in the video is that gastric acid is produced from salt, which can promote digestion, and a low-salt diet may lead to gluten allergy.
Rumor:It is wrong to say that gastric acid is not produced without salt. The main component of gastric acid is hydrogen chloride, and gastric acid is not secreted because of salt intake.
Gluten is a kind of protein, which exists in the processed products with grain as raw material. After people with gluten allergy ingest gluten, it will cause serious gastrointestinal reaction, which will make the small intestine unable to absorb nutrients. Gluten allergy occurs in the small intestine, probably because the patient carries a specific gene, which is not directly related to gastric acid secretion and low-salt diet.
For most people in Chinese, due to their eating habits, it is really necessary to pay attention to salt control. According to a new study released by Queen Mary College of University of London in 2019, the average daily salt intake of adults in China in the past 40 years was more than 10 grams, more than twice the recommended amount of the World Health Organization, and much higher than the recommended amount of adult salt less than 6 grams per day in the Dietary Guidelines for China Residents (2016). In the State Council’s Opinions on Implementing Healthy China Action released this year, China clearly proposed to encourage the whole society to participate in reducing salt. At present, the dietary proposal of controlling salt "less than 6 grams" is based on the fact that residents generally have too high salt intake.
Although salt control is encouraged, it should not be excessively controlled. Long-term low-salt diet will also pose a potential threat of hyponatremia.
[Proverbs 3] Painless childbirth has a great influence on the fetus.
In August, 2019, National Health Commission announced that painless delivery would be piloted in 913 hospitals across the country. The analgesic technique of intraspinal delivery adopted in pilot hospitals has an analgesic efficiency of over 95%. In China, painless delivery has not been well popularized, and there are some conceptual reasons besides the shortage of anesthesiologists. There is a kind of folk opinion that painless delivery has a great influence on the fetus and should not be used as much as possible.
Rumor:Painless delivery is to inject anesthetic drugs into the spinal canal, thus blocking nerve conduction and achieving the purpose of relieving pain. The anesthetic drugs will basically not enter the child’s body. The dosage used in painless delivery is extremely low, which is only 1/10-1/20 of that of cesarean section, so the probability of entering the maternal blood and passing through the placenta is very small, which has little impact on the fetus and generally does not affect the baby’s brain health. Ou Shan, director of the Anesthesiology Department of Chengdu First People’s Hospital, said that short-term exposure to anesthesia did not affect the physiological development of children at all.
Painless delivery is a drug intervention, although it has little impact on the fetus, but there is still the possibility of adverse reactions. The common complications of painless delivery are hypotension, headache, backache and so on, but the serious life-threatening complications are rare. Common adverse reactions are mainly manifested in the impact on the labor process and placental blood supply. Therefore, qualified and experienced anesthesiologists are needed to operate, and obstetricians and anesthesiologists need to monitor the maternal situation together during the whole delivery process.
Whether pregnant women can give birth without pain needs to be examined and evaluated by obstetricians and anesthesiologists, and the doctors will jointly decide whether they can give birth without pain. If they have a history of pregnancy complicated with heart disease, drug allergy and waist trauma, they should tell the doctor in time. As long as there are no obstetric and anesthetic contraindications, painless delivery can be carried out within the basic normal range by checking platelet and coagulation function.
[Proverbs 4] Depression is not a disease, but too melodramatic.
This year, several celebrity suicides caused great repercussions on the Internet, pushing depression back to the public’s view. In the discussion about depression on the Internet, there are always some views that "depression is just a poor psychological endurance", "depression is too melodramatic" and "when you encounter some difficulties, you will pull it on depression".
Rumor:Depression is a common mental illness in today’s society. Its typical symptoms are persistent depression, difficulty in concentration, memory loss and insomnia, which may seriously lead to suicide.
As a mental illness, depression has a biological basis, not a "heart disease" or a personality problem. According to Professor Si Tianmei, director of the Psychopharmacology Research Office of the Sixth Hospital of Peking University, neurons in the brain are connected by synapses, which are regulated by neurotransmitters, such as norepinephrine and 5- hydroxytryptamine. Studies have shown that the level and function of these neurotransmitters are disordered in some special brain regions of patients with depression, and patients show corresponding symptoms such as anxiety, depression, sleep disorder or lack of interest.
Depression is different from depression. Depression is mainly treated with drugs, supplemented by behavioral therapy. Taking drugs on time and in quantity is the basis of treating depression. Depression will affect patients’ study, work, life and social interaction to varying degrees, and patients themselves cannot control their pain through willpower. Therefore, we should not blame or question patients with depression, but should increase efforts to spread depression and its treatment, treat depression correctly, and care for patients with depression.
[Proverbs 5] Washing blood can beautify.
In February 2019, a medical beauty project called "blood washing" was heated up. This project is to extract a certain amount of blood from the body, inject ozone into the blood, and then return it to the body. Merchants claim that such an operation can achieve the effects of "purifying" blood, detoxifying and caring skin, and preventing cancer. The dark red blood extracted from the body turns bright red after injecting ozone, which is proof that the blood is purified.
deny/refute/spike a rumourThere is no scientific basis for "blood-washing" beauty beauty, and there are serious security risks. Beauty salons change the color of blood from dark red to bright red by injecting ozone into the blood, which is called blood purification. However, when people breathe normally, the blood will change from dark red to bright red, and there is no need to inject ozone at all. "Blood washing" in beauty salons uses a method similar to hemodialysis, which requires very high safety operation and easily leads to virus infections such as AIDS and syphilis.
In the face of the emerging medical and aesthetic projects, we should be cautious and not believe in the so-called "new therapies" and "new technologies" so as to cause physical damage.
[Proverbs 6] "Cervical erosion" can lead to cervical cancer
"Cervical erosion" without treatment will lead to infertility, abortion and cervical cancer, which is also an enduring old rumor. "Cervical erosion" was once a "disease" that troubled many women. Women who go for physical examination are often diagnosed with cervical erosion. With the progress of science, "cervical erosion" is a word that should be swept into the garbage dump of medical history.
deny/refute/spike a rumourZhang Dai, chief physician of Obstetrics and Gynecology Department of Peking University Hospital, said that "cervical erosion" means that when we look at the cervical area with naked eyes, there are signs of local redness, but in fact, this "redness" is only a multi-layered squamous epithelium transformed into a single-layered columnar epithelium, thus showing a red effect, which is a normal physiological phenomenon. The so-called "cervical erosion" is just a kind of cell that doesn’t look good, occupying most of the cervix.
For women of childbearing age, the state of "cervical erosion" is more likely to appear because of the influence of hormone levels in the body.
Before 2008, the unified textbook "Obstetrics and Gynecology" for medical students in China regarded cervical erosion as a standard disease symptom, with complete clinical manifestations, diagnosis and treatment methods; However, in the new edition of Gynecology and Obstetrics in 2008, the name of "cervical erosion" was explicitly cancelled and replaced by the physiological phenomenon of "cervical columnar epithelium heterotopia".
There is no direct relationship between "cervical erosion" and "cervical cancer", but "cervical cancer" usually occurs at the junction of cervical columnar epithelium and squamous epithelium. The persistent infection of high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) is the culprit of "cervical cancer", and it is impossible to judge whether you have cancer from the degree of "cervical erosion".
"Cervical cancer" or precancerous lesions can be manifested as "cervical erosion", but only the symptoms of "erosion" caused by high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) infection will develop into cervical cancer. When the symptoms of "cervical erosion" appear, you should go to the hospital for corresponding examination in time. If it is determined to be "cervical erosion", that is, "cervical columnar epithelial ectopic", there is no need to worry. What needs to be paid attention to is the screening of "cervical cancer". Once cervical precancerous lesions or early canceration that look like "cervical erosion" are found, they need to be dealt with immediately without delay.
[Proverbs 7] Freshly squeezed juice is more nutritious than fruit.
When it comes to freshly squeezed juice, most people will think of keywords such as "freshness", "nutrition" and "health". In 2019, freshly squeezed juice products and drink shops are still popular. Many merchants use various fancy marketing words to claim that freshly squeezed juice is more conducive to the absorption of nutrients and has richer nutritional value than fresh fruit.
deny/refute/spike a rumourFrom a nutritional point of view, freshly squeezed juice is too fine and filters out a lot of dietary fiber. Fruit is in a solid state and needs to be chewed, with strong satiety and slow gastric emptying; Fruit juice is in a liquid state, so it doesn’t need to be chewed, and it feels poor satiety. Its emptying speed in the stomach is very fast, and its absorption speed in the intestine is also very fast, which will also make blood sugar rise much faster, which is very unfavorable for controlling blood sugar and weight.
A fruit can squeeze about 60 ml of juice, and drinking a cup of 200 ml of pure juice is equivalent to eating three fruits, which is equivalent to greatly concentrating the sugar in the fruit. Eating too much sugar will increase the risk of obesity, and then increase the risk of a series of chronic diseases related to obesity, such as diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia and so on.
In addition, the color of freshly squeezed fruit juice is getting darker and darker after a period of time, because the fruit is rich in potassium and antioxidants (vitamin C and β -carotene, cellulose and other substances, the blade of the juicer will destroy the cell structure of the fruit, so that the polyphenols in the fruit will react with phenol oxidase, and the oxidase will quickly catalyze the oxidation of colorless polyphenols to generate colored "quinones". Therefore, the original antioxidant capacity of the juice produced by the blade will be reduced by half or more.
Drinking freshly squeezed fruit juice should ensure fresh ingredients, control intake, and try to eat fresh fruit directly, which can ensure dietary fiber and more comprehensive nutrition.
[Proverbs 8] Sweating with fever can reduce fever.
One of the common ways to deal with fever among the people is to cover a thick quilt and make you sweat, which is usually called "covering your sweat" or "sweating". In January 2019, during the peak period of influenza, experts from the national influenza medical treatment expert group suggested that the pursuit of sweating should not be blindly used during the fever period.
Rumor:Some people say that the fever did come down after sweating all over. In fact, sweating is the result of fever, not the cause of fever. When you have a fever, your body temperature changes through three stages: temperature rising period, chills or chills; During the duration of high fever, fever is caused by the rapid increase of white blood cells in the body in order to swallow bacteria, and the increase of oxygen consumption causes the body temperature to rise. After the body temperature rises to a peak, the fever will last for a period of time, during which the energy consumption is high, the mouth is dry and the whole body is hot; Hypothermia, sweating and heat dissipation, and moist skin.
Yan Hui, deputy chief physician of Pediatric Cardiology Department of Peking University First Hospital, pointed out that "covering the quilt" can’t make children recover faster. After taking the medicine, the body sweats and needs to dissipate heat and replenish water in time. At this time, children are prone to dehydration due to sweating and lack of water supply. For infants with weak constitution, the language expression ability is not in place. When the child is found to have a fever, it is generally close to or in the duration of high fever. At this time, covering it tightly will affect heat dissipation, which will lead to a clinical disease that belongs to infants — — Heat syndrome.
When you have a fever, the correct way is not to wear too many clothes, not to cover too thick a quilt, to ensure that your body can fully dissipate heat and drink more warm water.
[Proverbs 9] MSG is toxic, carcinogenic and alopecia-causing.
Many people have heard from their elders since childhood that eating too much monosodium glutamate is bad for their health and may even cause cancer. The saying that monosodium glutamate is harmful has been circulating for many years. In November 2019, there was an opinion on the Internet that monosodium glutamate was "toxic" and that monosodium glutamate would suddenly cause cancer when it exceeded 100℃, which would lead to hair loss and so on.
Rumor:Du Jingming, an associate researcher at the Institute of Nutrition and Food Safety of China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said that monosodium glutamate, a crystal crystallized from grain, is a natural substance produced by glutamic acid bacteria fermentation. Many natural foods contain sodium glutamate. In China, monosodium glutamate is mostly prepared from corn starch, rice and other grains through fermentation, extraction and refining. These natural foods and grains are non-toxic and harmless, and sodium glutamate, which meets international standards, is naturally non-toxic and harmless. The joint expert group of food additives of the World Health Organization has proved that monosodium glutamate is safe from various tests such as acute toxicity, subacute toxicity, chronic acute toxicity, teratogenicity and sudden variability.
There is no corresponding theoretical and experimental data to support the claim that monosodium glutamate causes alopecia.
Like salt, monosodium glutamate and sodium glutamate in chicken essence contain sodium, and excessive intake of sodium will lead to cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases such as hypertension. Therefore, we should control monosodium glutamate like salt intake. The dietary guidelines for Chinese residents advocate that the daily salt consumption per person should be less than 6g, but the actual intake is generally about 10g. If sodium in monosodium glutamate is added, it will be more. The European Food Safety Agency has adopted a safety factor of 100 times, and set a new safe intake for glutamic acid and its salts, that is, 30mg per kilogram of body weight, which is equivalent to 1.8g per day for adults weighing 60 kilograms.
In our daily diet, we need to refer to the following rules when eating monosodium glutamate:
1. Avoid high temperature. Studies have shown that when the temperature is too high, monosodium glutamate will turn into sodium pyroglutamate, which is non-toxic, but the umami flavor is no longer there.
2. Avoid excessive consumption. Some varieties of monosodium glutamate contain many sodium salts.
3. Avoid repeated use. Natural ingredients such as fish, eggs, mushrooms and water bamboo will produce umami flavor at the same time during the cooking process, and there is no need to add monosodium glutamate to adjust the freshness.
[Proverbs 10] Honey can detoxify and beautify.
Drinking honey water can detoxify and nourish the face, which has become the slogan of many honey sellers. In 2019, there are still many health platforms and online articles saying that drinking honey water can detoxify and nourish the face, promote gastrointestinal peristalsis to achieve the effect of relaxing bowels, and can relieve alcoholism.
Rumor:The main components of honey are fructose and glucose, and it also contains 20% water, a certain amount of vitamins, minerals, protein, organic acids, enzymes, etc., but these elements are less than 1%. Eating honey can only increase the body’s calories and sugar, and it is impossible to detoxify. The efficacy of honey mentioned on the Internet is too exaggerated. After being digested by gastric acid, the enzymes in honey often lose their activity.
Some people think that drinking honey water can promote gastrointestinal peristalsis. In fact, this happens only to people who are intolerant of fructose. People with "fructose intolerance" constitution have slow intestinal absorption ability. After eating honey, fructose can stay in the intestine for a longer time, more water will enter the intestinal cavity, and the stool volume will increase, which can play a laxative effect on this group of people. In addition, when drinking honey, you also drink a lot of water. Drinking more water also plays a role in increasing the volume of stool and stimulating the gastrointestinal tract. For most people, honey can’t have a laxative effect.
Honey can’t sober up. The fructose contained in honey can accelerate the metabolism of ethanol in alcohol, but alcohol is metabolized in human body to produce acetaldehyde, which is the main substance that leads to drunkenness. Fructose only reduces the concentration of alcohol in blood and relieves the acute damage of ethanol to the central system, and there is nothing to do with acetaldehyde, which is more harmful.
(Source: Science and Technology Daily, Xinhuanet, China Internet Rumor Platform, China Association for Science and Technology Popular Science China Official Platform, China Women’s Daily, Yangguang. com)