Don't Cross Your Eyes...They'll Get Stuck That Way!: And 75 Other Health Myths Debunked (12 page)

Because this is just one study, the verdict on garlic is still out. This is not a lot of evidence as to whether garlic really does prevent or treat colds. While this one relatively small study suggests that garlic might prevent your getting colds, this needs to be studied again and again, and in more people, in order to determine if garlic really works.

There may be another important consideration to take into account when deciding whether you want to start taking garlic. While we cannot find any studies to prove or disprove this, it seems likely that reeking like garlic might decrease your chances of getting lucky. That’s right—people may not want to sleep with someone who stinks. This just might outweigh the benefits of the garlic because not having sex could make you more vulnerable to colds. In a study that closely examined the immune systems of men who had to spend periods of time either masturbating or not masturbating, scientists found that sexual arousal and orgasms increased the number of certain immune cells. The natural killer cells, which are an important part of your body’s immune system, came out to the bloodstream when the volunteers were aroused or having orgasms. Getting lucky might improve the function of your immune system!

Garlic may help to prevent or shorten colds, but we would advise careful consideration of the pros and cons while we wait for more data about how well garlic works. If you have a partner with a poor sense of smell, you may want to go ahead and grab some garlic.

Green Snot

If you have green snot, you need an antibiotic

We’ve attempted to cover this one before, but it’s one of those pervasive myths that we just keep having to dispel. Plus, many of you (even the doctors among you) are convinced that the color of snot is the key to knowing just how sick you are. And you’re probably convinced that green is the worst color, the one that means infection, and that requires an antibiotic.

Let’s start with some basic facts. What makes snot turn green? You might think that working with snot would be so disgusting that no one would ever do it. You’d be wrong.

When you have an infection, the body sends off neutrophils—a type of white blood cell—to fight the infection. So if you have an infection in your nose, it’s likely there are more neutrophils present in your nasal passages than usual. These cells work by (for lack of a better description) eating the germs that make you sick. Once they have swallowed or engulfed the germs, the special white blood cells keep the germs in what serves as their “stomachs,” and they digest them. One of the enzymes that the white blood cells use most often to digest the invader germs is called myeloperoxidase, and myeloperoxidase has a fair amount of iron in it. (This is important as we continue with the germ-eating story.)

Once the neutrophils get full of digested germs, they burst. The iron in the myeloperoxidase gets mixed into the surrounding stuff in your nose. And when you mix iron into that stuff, guess what color your snot turns? Green.

Notice we said nothing about bacteria here. That’s because this works exactly the same for viruses or bacteria. It doesn’t matter which of the offending germs are in your nose. Whether bacteria or viruses have invaded doesn’t affect the iron in the myeloperoxidase in the neutrophils, and that is what makes your snot green. So you may have green snot with a bacterial infection, but it also may not be bacterial. The green does not tell you if it’s a bacterial infection. And only bacterial infections need antibiotics.

This hasn’t stopped the battle from being waged, however. Even though this issue has been around for a long time, doctors still vehemently disagree as to whether antibiotics have any effect for conditions with green snot. A lot of doctors, perhaps most doctors, are much more likely to give you an antibiotic if you tell them your snot is green. But even the authors of a study finding a small link between antibiotic use and feeling better say that you shouldn’t use antibiotics routinely for green snot. There may have been people with sinusitis in that study, and some of them included people with green snot for almost a month. It’s a hotly debated piece.

The bottom line is that you can tell almost nothing about the bug infecting you from the fact that you have green snot. Antibiotics will do nothing for you if you have a viral infection. And many studies confirm that antibiotics are associated with side effects. If an antibiotic is not going to help you and might cause a bad side effect, then you want to avoid using one. If you are sick, you should talk with your doctor about whether treating your infection with antibiotics might cause more good than harm, but do not let the greenness of your snot sway the decision.

G-spot

Women do not have a G-spot

You might be surprised to know just how much controversy exists among sex researchers and gynecologists as to whether women have a G-spot. G-spot is a term used to describe an especially sensitive area that supposedly exists in a woman’s vagina. This erogenous zone is supposed to be an area that can be stimulated to lead to pleasurable feelings or even orgasms in women for whom the G-spot can be identified. Among those who say that this spot exists, they suggest it is located on the front wall of the vagina, about halfway between the pubic bone and the cervix. The G-spot is often cited as being a source of “internal” or “vaginal” orgasms for a woman, as opposed to the clitoris, which can be stimulated for more of an “external” orgasm.

The G-spot was named after Dr. Ernst Gräfenberg, a German obstetrician and gynecologist, who described a sensitive female area back in the 1950s. Three researchers, Drs. John Perry and Beverly Whipple, and Alice Kahn Ladas, Ed. D., dubbed this area the G-spot in his honor in their 1982 book called
The G Spot: And Other Discoveries About Human Sexuality.
What they described was really more of an area than a spot, an area on the front wall of the vagina where a number of anatomical structures tend to come together—blood vessels, glands and ducts on either side of the urethra, nerve endings, the vagina wall, and the neck of the bladder. In their study, 400 women were examined, and the G-spot was identified in each one. Histologic studies, ones that look at the types of cells or human tissues, seem to support the existence of this area in terms of the various components coming together in one area. However, they also suggest that the composition of this area is somewhat different from one woman to another, which may be why it seems like some women do not have a G-spot or do not experience pleasure when this area is stimulated. Contrary to popular belief, the G-spot does not have a lot more nerve endings. In a study that took 110 biopsies from twenty-one women, they did not find a particular area in this region with lots and lots of nerves. While this small study could have just missed the spot, it also supports the idea that the G-spot is not just a bunch of nerves, but a collection of other structures.

This all sounds fairly straightforward. Surely scientists can tell if a body part exists or not, right? You might be surprised. A number of them doubt whether the G-spot exists at all. However, the science disproving the G-spot is not particularly strong. One argument against the G-spot is that some scans, such as an MRI, have not revealed an obvious structure. The problem with these studies is that they are generally very small. Scientists have argued based on one scan of one woman in whom they did not see a structure that they would call a G-spot. One scan of one woman does not mean that there is not a particularly sensitive area present. Other arguments against the G-spot suggest that there is not a particular anatomical spot, but that the entire area is quite sensitive or that the G-spot might be “in women’s heads.” If you think that stimulating a particular area is going to feel good, then it will feel good, argue these detractors. The problem with this line of thinking is that it could go either way for the G-spot. Certainly, the brain is an important sexual organ. If you think something will be exciting or you think something will feel good or you want someone to touch you, that should make that aspect of sex more enjoyable! This does not mean that there is no sensitive area in the vagina; it just means that the psychology of sex might be the most important thing overall. Researchers both for and against the G-spot agree with that idea.

Another recent study claimed to disprove the existence of the G-spot based on a study in 1,800 twins. Just over half of the women believed they had a G-spot, but the twins of these women were no more likely to think that they had a G-spot. The lack of a twin connection made the study authors conclude that this was evidence against an anatomical G-spot. While twins should be more likely to have the same anatomical structures, it is also possible that their sexual experiences are different enough that they do not consider themselves sensitive in the same areas. As the G-spot expert Dr. Whipple suggests, the biggest problem with this study is that twins usually do not have the same sexual partner! With different people, different emotions, and different scenarios, the experience of sexuality among the twins might be different enough to color whether they think they have this sensitive area.

After reviewing the studies of the G-spot, it is clear that experts are divided and that the science is not rigorous enough to give us a clear answer. On balance of these data, we are going to come down in favor of the existence of the G-spot. (We’re trying to be very scientific, but have to admit that there are likely some nonscientific reasons biasing this conclusion. We’ll spare you the specifics…) Reasonable examinations have supported the existence of the G-spot, and no convincing science currently disproves these findings. One of the most important factors here is how important the brain is to the experience of sexuality. The reason to celebrate the G-spot is not because women should be pressured to find if they have such an area and to have it stimulated. Instead, it should refocus us to know more about the parts of the body that can be involved in pleasurable experiences. It is also clear that more research needs to be done related to women’s sexuality, even in the basics of the anatomy of the vagina.

Hair Dye

Dyeing your hair will give your baby birth defects

According to the American Cancer Society, about 70 percent of adult women use hair dye. So it only stands to reason that a significant number of pregnant women are going to be faced with the fact that they would be due for a reapplication while they’re pregnant. As with everything else in pregnancy, the question comes up as to what potential harm dyeing your hair might do to the fetus.

Many people, and many organizations, will tell you that dyeing your hair is dangerous for your baby. Hair dyes use harsh chemicals. Chemicals are absorbed through your head (or hands if you touch the stuff) and then seep into your blood, get carried to your unborn baby, and cause horrific problems like birth defects or cancer. (Right?)

You wouldn’t be crazy for thinking that hair dye could be bad for unborn babies. A widely publicized study was published in 2005, in the aptly named journal
Cancer Causes
and
Control
, which described a link between the use of maternal hair dye and the subsequent risk of neuroblastoma, a type of cancer, in their children.

Here’s the thing. That was a case-control study, and as we have discussed, that type of study is really susceptible to recall bias, where people remember things differently because they have a problem. Here’s how the study went. They telephoned over 500 mothers who had children with neuroblastoma. They asked the mothers about potential risk factors for cancer, including a lot of questions about hair dye use. Then they randomly called a similar number of people whose children did not have neuroblastoma and asked them the same question. They found that 23 percent of case mothers reported hair dye use, compared to 16 percent of control mothers. It is well known that people whose children have the disease (cases) are more likely to report stuff that might have caused the disease than people whose children don’t have the disease (controls). That’s recall bias. Moreover, you have to remember that this study does not prove that hair dye causes neuroblastoma; at best, it can show an association. The association was not even particularly strong.

The authors do note these limitations of the study, and ended the paper by calling for more research. There have been a number of studies of hair dye in pregnant animals. A study of twelve rabbits and twenty cats given hair dye many times during a pregnancy could find no effects in their offspring. Another study of five different hair dyes given to rats found no effects. This study also used a control of megadoses of vitamin A to prove that rats exposed to some compounds would have abnormal fetuses (they did). There are others, showing similar results.

Still, for some of you, any risk is too much. We understand that. But consider that you likely engage in many activities each day that are of higher risk to your baby than the theoretical and unproven one of dyeing your hair. For example, your risk of being in a car accident that would harm you and the baby is probably much higher than the risk from dyeing your hair. Talk with your doctor, and make your own decision. We know that dyeing hair is very important to some women (no names mentioned), and they should know there really is no evidence proving that dyeing their hair will cause cancer in their children.

Handshakes

Don’t shake hands if you want to stay healthy

How many times do we mention the importance of hand washing in this book? Probably a hundred times. All the studies and experts tell us that hand washing is one of the best ways to avoid getting sick. We pick up all kinds of germs on our hands—whether from shaking hands with someone who has been coughing and sneezing their infectious snot all over their palms or by touching contaminated door handles, phones, or faucets. If it is so very important to keep our hands clean, it makes sense that the best course of action might be to avoid any hand-shaking altogether. When the H1N1 influenza, or swine flu, was rapidly spreading around the world, the United States vice president suggested that people should avoid hand-shaking. Many people were left wondering whether they needed to risk offending others by refusing to shake hands.