3 Pervasive Health Myths That Hinder Your Understanding of the Truth

There is an incredible amount of health misinformation out there. Some of it is relatively harmless – but there are some myths that can have damaging consequences if you mistakenly believe them. Let’s discuss 3 pervasive health myths that can hinder your understanding of the truth.

Vaping Is Totally Safe.

Vaping is a relatively new phenomenon. Its purpose is to enable people to ingest nicotine or other substances without actually smoking cigarettes. In Australia, it is a controversial practice subject to a patchy framework of laws that essentially serve as a ban on the activity.

Internationally, there seems to have been a widespread belief and consensus that vaping is basically safe – but, recent events are making it clear that vaping’s safety is a myth. Vaping can cause harm – and, in fact, in the United States, there has been a recent outbreak of vaping-related hospitalisations, injuries and deaths.

As of October 22, 2019, there have been 34 vaping-related deaths and 1,604 cases of lung injury that were reported to the Center for Disease Control (CDC). Experts at the CDC put a definitive end to the myth of vaping’s safety. They tell us:

”There is no safe tobacco product. All tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, carry a risk.”

Dr. Frank T. Leone, MD, MS is the Director of Comprehensive Smoking Treatment Programmes at Penn Medicine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Dr. Leone has elaborated on some of the possible safety issues associated with vaping. For starters, he has pointed out that some vape cigarettes deliver far greater concentrations of carcinogens than ordinary cigarettes do.

Dr. Leone has also explained that vaping has the potential to increase a person’s chances of suffering liver damage, retinal damage and blindness. This is because the propylene glycol in the vape cigarettes can accumulate in the liver and retina. In the long term, that accumulation might cause damage to the tissues in those areas of the body.

Furthermore, research published in the Journal of the Endocrine Society indicates that vaping may be harmful to female fertility.

We have much more to learn about what the long-term effects of vaping will be; however, it has already become clear that vaping is not a harmless activity.

If you need help to quit smoking, try Nicotine Replacement Therapy products, many of which are available over the counter in Australia. You may also wish to speak with your GP for customised advice and support.

To Lose Weight, You Must Starve Yourself and Exercise More.

Every person knows, in theory, how to lose weight: Don’t eat too much, and make sure to exercise. But, if it were really that simple, why do so many people face hugely intensive struggles with weight loss, only to chronically be unsuccessful?

The actual reality is that factors beyond food intake and exercise regiment do heavily influence individual body weight. If you only focus on diet and exercise, it is possible that you could enjoy success with weight loss – but it is also possible that you could fail dramatically.

In the recent past, research scientists have been uncovering some fascinating insights regarding the previously-hidden factors beyond diet and exercise that shape peoples’ body weight:

Sleep

Your body does the vast majority of its work in regulating your hunger hormones while you slumber. Hopefully you’re getting the recommended 8 hours of sleep each night – but if you aren’t, your lack of sleep is probably putting you at risk for unwanted weight gain. If you aren’t getting adequate amounts of sleep, your body may be hindered from properly regulating your levels of ghrelin and leptin, which are two of the hormones that govern your metabolism.

Obesogens

Ingesting certain unwholesome chemicals, including BPA, atrazine, dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (DDE), phthalates and Perfluorodecanoic Acid (PFOA), can impede proper functioning of the hormones that regulate your body’s consumption and storage of energy.

Chemicals such as these are hard to avoid. They’re probably hidden in the packaging for your food and drinking water; they may be lining your cookware; and they’re probably in your cleaning and personal care products, too. If you have breathed in or consumed many of these chemicals, you may need to detoxify before you will be able to successfully lose weight. If you are actively attempting to lose weight, but so far you have not enjoyed the hoped-for results, ridding your body of these sorts of chemicals may be one of the keys to making a breakthrough.

You’ll want to consider making some strategic lifestyle changes in hopes of avoiding future ingestion of more of these harmful chemicals. They are quite common, so total avoidance of them is not easy – but there are many things you can do to mitigate your exposure to them:

Avoid treating your garden with chemical pesticides.

Minimise exposure to chemical pesticides by eating organic and choosing organic, chemical-free toiletries and cleaning products.

Replace non-stick pans and cookware. Consider preparing your food using cookware made from cast iron, stainless steel, glass or earthenware.

Drink your on-the-go beverages from a glass water bottle rather than a plastic one.

Avoid allowing your food to come into contact with plastic food containers, especially for reheating.

Eat freshly harvested, un-processed food as frequently as possible.

If you must buy processed food, avoid the tinned options to the greatest extent possible.

These actions can significantly reduce your exposure to unwanted substances that contribute to both weight gain and the inability to lose weight.

These are not the only factors that can influence your body weight, but they are a couple of the most important factors you need to be aware of if you’re hoping to slim down.

Liposuction Is a Productive Weight Loss Mechanism.

Numerous myths about liposuction have pervaded public consciousness. One of the most well-circulated and temptingly believable myths is that liposuction is a suitable procedure for empowering weight loss. This is simply not true.

Liposuction does tend to result in an extremely slight, but possibly negligible, loss of body weight. In truth, most liposuction patients could reasonably expect to lose less than 3 kilograms worth of body weight as a result of the procedure. If you’re hoping to undergo this procedure for the purpose of losing weight, you’d probably be hoping for more dramatic results than these, and that false hope would lead to bitter disappointment.

If you read these Dr Joseph Ajaka reviews, or, indeed, the honest reviews written by actual patients of any competent plastic surgeon after undergoing liposuction, you will notice a common element: The reviews tend to focus on how the shape of the patient’s body was improved as a result of the procedure. With most of these sorts of reviews, weight loss is not even mentioned in conjunction with liposuction.

If you decide to have liposuction based on the mistaken belief that it is your magic bullet for weight loss, you’d be missing the point of the procedure – which is actually more about modelling and sculpting the body in order to create a discreetly sleeker silhouette. Think of liposuction as a procedure that allows you to lose centimeters, rather than kilograms.

Perhaps one or more of these myths was holding you back from understanding what you need to focus on in your ongoing quest for wellness. Now that you’re updated on the truth, you can abandon the mistaken beliefs that may have been hindering your progress towards greater well-being.