Don't Cross Your Eyes...They'll Get Stuck That Way!: And 75 Other Health Myths Debunked (24 page)

Sadly, vitamin C does not kill the viruses that cause colds, nor does it seem to make your cold symptoms better. In seven studies looking at the treatment of the common cold, scientists found no improvement in symptoms if you took vitamin C. It was no better than a placebo; neither one improved the cold symptoms. Based on the results of eleven studies of more than 6,000 people, taking vitamin C does not make the duration of your cold any shorter or your cold any less severe. In these trials, people took doses up to 4 grams (4,000 mg) and did not see a benefit in cold symptoms. Vitamin C doesn’t work!

Vitamin E

Vitamin E helps scars heal

Vitamin E has become a popular remedy to apply to cuts, scrapes, and even surgical wounds to help scars heal. Some people believe it will take your scar away or get rid of those ugly stretch marks. Many health professionals, including doctors, nurses, and medical students, recommend vitamin E to their patients to improve the look of their scars.

In the lab, vitamin E has been found to have an antioxidant effect, but there is no good scientific evidence that vitamin E actually does anything to improve how a wound heals. At first glance, the evidence looks promising. In one study of eighty patients with very large scars, or keloids, putting a silicone sheet that contained vitamin E overnight on the scar seemed to improve the appearance of scars more than using silicone sheets that did not have vitamin E.

Unfortunately, other studies have not found similarly good effects when using vitamin E. In a study of patients who had skin cancers removed, each patient was given two ointments to put on either end of the wound. One ointment was a pure moisturizer called Aquaphor, and the other was Aquaphor mixed with vitamin E. Neither the patients nor the physicians knew which ointment was being put where on the scar. Neither patients, physicians, nor an independent reviewer could see any benefit from the vitamin E ointment at one, four, or twelve weeks after the surgery. For 90 percent of the patients, the patients, physicians, and reviewers thought the vitamin E–treated area of the scar looked the same or even worse. A third of patients also developed a contact dermatitis, which is an itchy rash, from the vitamin E. Another group of researchers studied 159 patients who had surgery to remove contractures, or tightening of the skin, that was produced after having been burned. After these patients had surgery, they were randomized to either put a vitamin E ointment on the wound, a steroid ointment, or a plain moisturizer. Neither the vitamin E nor the steroid made any difference in the thickness or size of the scar or the overall cosmetic appearance. The results from these studies suggest that the limited evidence in favor of vitamin E is questionable. In two careful studies, the researchers could not find a healing effect from vitamin E, and it even caused rashes or side effects in some patients. We have said this before about other treatments, but if something does not work and seems to have a good chance of making a problem worse or giving you another side effect, it makes sense to stay away from that “treatment.”

Vitamin E does not seem to be a good answer for scar-healing, but you might actually think about onions. Really. An extract from onions has been shown in randomized trials to improve the texture and redness of scars in patients, as well as to have good effects on the cells involved with scar formation in the laboratory. Gels such as Mederma contain this onion extract. More research into what might work to really help wound-healing or to get rid of our scars or stretch marks would be very welcome.

Warts

You will get warts from handling frogs or toads

No one likes warts, and frogs and toads aren’t very popular either, so it’s no wonder they are linked. Moreover, many toads and frogs have bumps and such on their bodies that look like warts. These protrusions often seem to ooze disgusting liquid as well, lending credence to the idea that they must be infectious in some way. The next conclusion is that they could give you those bumps or warts.

One part of this is true. Warts are contagious. Warts are actually caused by an infection, by viruses in fact. One virus in specific, human papillomavirus (HPV), is responsible for warts. There are many types of HPV and it is such a common virus that three quarters of people will get a wart at some time.

In fact, one strain of human papillomavirus even causes genital warts. This virus has been in the news more in the last few years because it is linked to cervical cancer in women. There is now a vaccine for the human papillomavirus that causes genital warts in order to try to prevent cervical cancer in women. We assume, and hope, that no one thinks they caught those kinds of warts from a frog or toad.

Warts of any kind are not easy to get rid of. Because they are caused by a virus, it’s actually possible for them to spread or reinfect you. Treatment with salicylic acid tries to burn off the warts chemically. This treatment can take weeks and sometimes hurts. Some doctors will freeze warts with liquid nitrogen, but that’s not painless either. Newer therapies involve the use of blister beetle extract or lasers. None of these is fun, and they don’t always work right away.

Regardless, the truth is you can’t catch any type of warts from an amphibian and that is for the simple reason that there is no human papillomavirus on them. Those bumps and protrusions that look like warts are actually defense mechanisms for the frogs or toads. That stuff the frogs and toads ooze is often poison, and it’s so nasty that animals have been known to spit the frogs or toads out almost immediately after putting them in their mouths.

So yes, frogs and toads are yucky. Yes, they look like they have warts on their skin. And yes, you can “catch” warts in the sense that they are caused by a viral infection. But you can’t get warts from a toad or frog. That’s a myth.

Wet Hair

Going outside with wet hair will make you sick

Rachel has had long hair most of her life. Sometimes, it’s tempting not to dry all that hair, but she knows very well the looks of horror and the gasps of concern that will greet her if she heads out of the house without drying her long locks. Especially in the colder months, going outside with wet hair is considered a clear recipe for bringing on a cold or pneumonia or other health disaster. In a survey of parents bringing their children in to the emergency department because they had a cold, 41 percent of the parents believed that going out with wet hair in cold weather could cause a cold. But what’s the truth here? If you are too lazy or running too late to dry your hair, are you putting your health at risk?

The first thing to consider in answering these questions is just what it is that makes you sick. Having wet hair does not make you sick. Being cold or getting chilled because you have wet hair does not make you sick. It’s not even the combination of cold weather and wet hair that makes you sick. What makes you sick is when your body is infected with a virus or with bacteria. Developing a cold is the type of sickness that most people worry about when they go out with wet hair. If you learn one thing from this book, it should be that colds are caused by viruses, most often by viruses from the rhinovirus family. Without a virus sneaking into your nose or mouth or other wet parts, you are not going to get sick. You get sick because someone who is infected with a rhinovirus sneezes or coughs, sending tiny droplets of fluid and rhinovirus into the air around you or onto their hands or onto something else you might come in contact with. When you breathe in that air full of tiny virus-filled drops of fluid or when you shake their cough-contaminated hand, you get some of that virus into your nose or mouth. It’s that virus that makes you sick—not your wet hair!

The next question might be whether your wet hair makes you more likely to be infected by those viruses that cause our coughs and colds. Having wet hair does make you feel cooler, especially when the temperatures are low. Does that extra chill make you more susceptible to getting a cold? The science suggests that this is not the case. In study after study, scientists have tested this question by putting the viruses that cause colds directly into volunteers’ noses and then making them spend time in different kinds of conditions. They make some of the volunteers stay in chilled rooms or freezing conditions, while others are in warmer rooms. And they make some of the volunteers have wet hair, while others have dry hair. In these studies, volunteers exposed to the cold-causing viruses are no more likely to get infected by those viruses if they have wet hair or if they have dry hair. Whether or not they get cold or are in cold conditions doesn’t make any difference either. Getting chilled, whether from your hair or from the cold weather, does not make you susceptible to getting infected with a cold virus. There is no scientific evidence that getting cold will cause your cold.

For those of you who are still not convinced, there may be one piece of evidence in your favor. There was a study where people who had their feet chilled were more likely to report cold symptoms. Does this mean that you might notice more cold symptoms if your feet are cold than if your head is chilled from your wet hair? Maybe. That study has not been done. But, even here, the important thing to remember is that there is still no support for the chilled feet causing the cold symptoms. You may just notice your symptoms more because you have cold feet. Some exports hypothesize that having a very cold part of the body causes a reflex in which you have less blood flow to your nose and upper airways, and that this somehow inhibits your body’s defenses, converting a viral infection that you didn’t really notice into one that is causing you symptoms like a stuffy nose. But this hypothesis has never been proven. It’s just as likely that when you have had really cold feet from your wet boots or a really cold head from your wet hair, you get worried about whether you are going to get sick and so you notice your sniffles right away.

The next time your mother scolds you about your wet hair, you can explain about the rhinoviruses that cause colds and the volunteers who spent all that time in the cold with wet hair and viruses stuck in their noses. Or, you can just run out the door really fast!

Wounds

You should uncover a wound at night to let it air out and heal

Most children wound themselves at one point or another. (Even though cautious parents are tempted to keep their children in a protective cocoon, most of us cannot maintain the bubble.) When we hurt ourselves at any age, we often hear the advice to expose the cut to the air so that it can heal better.

Most people who believe in this time-honored tradition do so for any number of reasons. Some believe that airing out a wound reduces the likelihood of infection. Others believe that drying the wound allows it to scab and will make the wound heal faster. Many also think there is something special about air, and letting the air get to the wound is a good thing.

This is completely backward.

When you cut yourself or sustain a wound, your skin heals itself by growing new cells out from the edges toward each other. These cells actually need a moist environment in which to grow and spread. In fact, when the wound dries out, or a hard scab forms, it can become more difficult for these cells to get where they need to be. Not only that, but a hard scab can permanently force these cells into undesirable formations, thus resulting in scars.

Ironically, wounds need exactly what many people have been claiming was harmful. A moist, covered environment is best. There have been a number of studies showing this is true. A study published in the
Journal of Surgical Research
in 1991 described ninety-two wounds inflicted on four piglets. These wounds were treated with eight different dressing regimens. Contrary to what many thought, they found that inert or dry bandages, such as dry gauze, caused wounds to take longer to heal. Another study in the
Annals of Plastic Surgery
in 1995 compared wet, moist, and dry gauze dressings on pig wounds. They found that wet, bandaged wounds healed two days faster than dry ones, and one day faster than moist ones. The moist or wet bandages also led to less necrosis (necrosis is a bad thing where your tissues die) and better quality of healing.

And if you aren’t convinced by pigs (although they seem to be the animal of choice for wound studies because their skin is most like ours), a study was conducted in twenty humans and published in 2008. These subjects allowed themselves to receive abrasions and were then given different types of bandages or no bandages. Wound-healing was checked on days 1, 3, 5, 7, 10, and 14 and judged on contraction, color, and luminance. These people took wound-healing seriously. They found that every kind of occlusive dressing (that means a dressing that covers up the wound tightly) performed better than no dressing at all. Anything that covers up the wound is better than leaving it open!

Additionally, no study has found that using dressings increases the rate of infection. There’s no truth to the idea that drying out the wound is better in terms of infection.

So while your mother (or grandmother) may tell you it’s a good idea to air out that cut or let it dry out, there is a wealth of evidence showing you should do the opposite. You should cover wounds, and not allow them to dry completely, as this will lead to faster and better healing with no increase in infection.

You should lick a wound or put a cut finger in your mouth

You know you’ve done it. You cut your finger or some other part of your body, and your first impulse was to put it in your mouth. Maybe you’ve licked a wound. Maybe you’ve sucked on a cut until it stopped bleeding. It seemed natural; you’ve seen lots of animals do it. But think about it. Is that really a good idea?

There are reasons that animals do this. Sometimes, licking a wound is the best way for a wild animal to clean it. But come on, we humans have a few better options. (Water, in particular, comes to mind.) There is also a body of research that shows there are compounds in saliva that might aid healing. But even those papers don’t come to the conclusion that you should lick a wound. Instead, they end by discussing how they will try and isolate those compounds to create new creams or medicine.