Have an apple

11 Medical myths we keep believing (but really shouldn't)

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Medicine is complicated, and it's easy for folklore, memes, and half-remembered advice to creep their way into our collective subconscious. Some of these myths are harmless, others are misleading, and many are downright dangerous. Let's take a look at 11 medical misconceptions that have endured over time, and that you've probably believed at one time or another.

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..keeps the doctor away, right? Apples are healthy. They are full of fiber, vitamins, and antioxidants. But, as you probably know, they aren't enough to ward off disease on their own. The phrase originated in 19th-century Wales as "Eat an apple on going to bed, and you’ll keep the doctor from earning his bread." The rhyme is charming, but fortunately, doctors still get plenty of bread.

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That satisfying pop comes from collapsing gas bubbles in the fluid of your joints, not from your bones grinding to dust. Decades of peer-reviewed research show no link between knuckle-cracking and arthritis or bone deterioration. It might be irritating for those around you, but not bad for your joints.

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It does feel that way, but it's only an optical illusion: the new growth feels blunt and coarse when compared to a tapered hair tip. However, the follicles themselves are unaffected by shaving. Your hair’s growth rate and thickness are determined by genetics.

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This one is nothing more than a parental scare-tactic propaganda. Gum is indeed indigestible, but it doesn’t remain trapped inside you forever. It passes through your digestive tract quite efficiently, just like corn or sunflower seeds. Certainly in days, not 7 years.

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Although carrots are good for overall eye health, the myth that they have the power to give you night vision stems from a little bit of British World War II propaganda. The British Royal Air Force claimed that their pilots had uncannily good night accuracy because of their carrot-heavy diets. In reality, it was a cover story to conceal their use of radar technology.

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Neither black coffee nor cold showers can accelerate the rate at which your body metabolizes alcohol. Ask any doctor for a recipe to sober up quickly, and they will tell you the sad, sad truth: it's impossible.

Plenty of people claim to have found a trick to solve this problem. However, no matter how many freezing showers you take, they will only make you cold, wet, and awake, but still drunk.

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Well, it depends on who you ask. There’s a long list of home remedies: hold your breath, drink water upside down, have a friend scare you, and so on. While some of these techniques might help by resetting your diaphragm, the truth is that most hiccups fade on their own within minutes. And if they don’t, you’re better off seeing a doctor than cycling through an endless number of folk cures.

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In reality, apple seeds contain amygdalin, which the body can convert into toxic cyanide (not arsenic). However, the amount of amygdalin in apple seeds is tiny: you would need to crush and eat over 150 apple seeds to get anything close to a dangerous dose. Or you could simply avoid eating the seeds altogether.

In any case, apples are far better at keeping the doctor away than they are at poisoning you.

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If you do, you'll catch a cold. Or that's what this myth would have us believe. In fact, wet hair in chilly weather will just make you uncomfortable.

As we know, colds are caused by viruses that get into our systems. Being cold or damp doesn't conjure viruses out of thin air. That being said, lowering your body's temperature might weaken your immune defenses slightly, but the real culprits are still unequivocally the germs.

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A Hollywood myth that has crawled deep into our collective imagination. While the exact origin of the phrase is unclear, it is often associated with the lectures of Harvard psychologist William James, who told audiences that we only tap a fraction of our full potential during the 1890s. The idea then evolved and spread through self-help and motivational literature, eventually becoming the widely believed claim we know today.

Scientific research has thoroughly debunked this notion. While the inner workings of much of our brain are still unknown to us, we do know that virtually all of it has a function, and we use 100% of it.

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A Thanksgiving classic, people like to blame their festive drowsiness on the turkey. There is some scientific basis for this: turkey does contain tryptophan, an amino acid that promotes sleep.

However, the amount in turkey is minimal and no greater than that found in chicken or beef. The real culprits behind your post-dinner nap are the carb overload, extra drinks, and day-long festivities—not the turkey itself.

Stranded at sea

From J.F.K. to Alexander Selkirk: 10 real-life castaway stories

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When we think of a shipwreck, the first thing that comes to mind is often a fictional character like Robinson Crusoe or the one played by Tom Hanks in Cast Away. However, throughout history, hundreds of real people have survived at sea or on deserted islands—often without water, food, or shelter. Here are 10 stories of brave adventurers who got lost in the ocean and survived against all odds.

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It is said that the story of Alexander Selkirk inspired Daniel Defoe to create his famous character, Robinson Crusoe. In 1704, this skillful Scottish sailor was on a buccaneering voyage in the South Pacific when he got fed up with a tyrannical captain who did not heed his warnings about the ship's poor safety.

Fearing for his life, Selkirk demanded to be put ashore at the next land they encountered. He was left on the uninhabited island of Más a Tierra, more than 400 miles off the west coast of Chile. As time passed and no rescue appeared, Selkirk realized he would have to make island life livable, with only rats, goats, and feral cats for company. After four years and four months, he was finally rescued by two British privateers.

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In 1542, 19-year-old French noblewoman Marguerite de La Rocque joined her uncle, Lieutenant General Jean-François Roberval, on an expedition to Newfoundland. During the journey, Marguerite fell in love with a young man. Her behavior was deemed unacceptable, so she was marooned—along with her lover and a maid—on the "Isle of Demons," off the east coast of Quebec.

Everyone except Marguerite eventually died. She lived in a cave and survived by hunting wild animals. After two years, she was rescued by Basque fishermen. Upon returning to France, the young castaway became famous thanks to the Queen of Navarre, who documented her story in 1558.

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In 1812, American Captain Charles Barnard discovered the crew of the British ship Isabella, which had sunk off one of the Falkland Islands—an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean. Realizing that the additional passengers would require more provisions, Barnard went out to search for food.

During his absence, the British crew took over his ship, the Nanina. Barnard and his party were abandoned by the very castaways they had saved. After surviving for 18 months on Eagle Island, they were finally rescued in November 1814.

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Juana Maria, better known as the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island, was a Native Californian. In 1835, when the few surviving members of her tribe, the Nicoleño, were relocated from the island off the coast of Alta California to the mainland—intended to protect them from ongoing attacks by Russian sea otter hunters—Juana Maria was accidentally left behind.

Eighteen years later, in 1853, a party of men found her alive and well. She had been living in a shelter made from whale bones and wore a dress sewn from cormorant skins. She was brought to Santa Barbara, California, but unfortunately, the change in diet and environment affected her health. Juana Maria contracted dysentery and died just seven weeks later.

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Did you know that long before he became president, John F. Kennedy went adrift in the South Pacific? In 1943, the 26-year-old was commanding PT-109 when a Japanese destroyer suddenly emerged and cut the craft in half. Two of the 13-member crew were killed, and two others were badly injured.

The survivors clung to the drifting bow for hours. Escaping sharks and other dangers, they swam three and a half miles to the tiny, deserted Plum Pudding Island. Kennedy and his men were finally rescued after surviving for seven days on coconuts.

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In the fall of 1921, Ada Blackjack, a 23-year-old Iñupiat woman, desperately needed money to care for her son, who was suffering from tuberculosis. She took a job as a cook and seamstress on Canadian explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson’s expedition to Wrangel Island, north of Siberia.

The plan was to stay for one year; however, the men were unable to find enough food and began to starve. In January 1923, three of them left to seek help, leaving Ada to care for the fourth man, who was sick with scurvy. The three were never heard from again, and the man she was caring for eventually died. Ada learned how to survive on her own until she was rescued in August 1923.

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The story of Luis Alejandro Velasco was brilliantly portrayed in the non-fiction book The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor by Colombian writer and Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez. In 1955, after setting sail from Mobile, Alabama, Velasco’s ship was wrecked in the Caribbean.

The rest of his ordeal is best summed up by the book's full title: The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor: Who Drifted on a Liferaft for Ten Days Without Food or Water, Was Proclaimed a National Hero, Kissed by Beauty Queens, Made Rich Through Publicity, and Then Spurned by the Government and Forgotten for All Time. Quite an adventure, don’t you think?

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In the fall of 1981, American naval architect and sailor Steven Callahan set out from Cornwall, in southwest England, bound for Antigua in the Caribbean. During a night storm, his 21-foot sloop, the Napoleon Solo, was badly damaged and began to take on water. Unable to remain aboard, he resorted to an inflatable life raft, on which he drifted for 76 days.

To survive, he collected rainwater, drank turtle blood, and ate fish eyes. Finally, on April 20, 1982, sailors off the coast of Marie-Galante, near Guadeloupe, spotted and rescued him. He had lost a third of his body weight and could barely stand. It took him six weeks to recover in a local hospital. Four years later, Callahan recounted his ordeal in the best-selling book Adrift: Seventy-Six Days Lost at Sea.

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In 1973, British couple Marilyn and Maurice Bailey set sail on a 31-foot yacht from Southampton, England, to New Zealand. On March 4, after safely crossing the Panama Canal, their vessel was rammed by a whale, forcing them to continue their journey in a small inflatable life raft.

The couple was stranded in the Pacific Ocean with little food, a few flares, and a compass. They collected rainwater and, when their supplies ran out, survived by eating birds, fish, and even turtles. After 117 days at sea—exhausted, malnourished, and near death—they were finally rescued by a Korean fishing vessel.

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José Salvador Alvarenga, an experienced Salvadoran sailor and fisherman, holds the record for the longest solo survival at sea: he spent 438 days adrift in the Pacific Ocean. On November 17, 2012, he set sail from a fishing village in Mexico with an inexperienced companion. Shortly after, a storm hit their 23-foot topless fiberglass skiff, destroying the engine and throwing them off course.

They drifted for months, surviving on rainwater and eating raw fish, turtles, and small birds. His companion refused to eat and eventually died of starvation. But Alvarenga never gave up hope. More than a year after their departure, he spotted land, swam ashore, and found himself on one of the Marshall Islands—on the opposite side of the Pacific from where he had started.