Festive medical myths

Published 17 December 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a2769
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a2769

Feature

Christmas 2008: Seasonal Fayre

Festive medical myths

Rachel C Vreeman, assistant professor of paediatrics, faculty investigator ^1,2,Aaron E Carroll, associate professor of paediatrics, director^1,2

¹ Children’s Health Services Research, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, USA, ² Center for Health Policy and Professionalism Research, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, USA

Correspondence to: R C Vreeman rvreeman@iupui.edu

More medical myths hit the dust, thanks to Rachel C Vreeman and Aaron E Carroll

In the pursuit of scientific truth, even widely held medical beliefs require examination or re-examination. Both physicians and non-physicians sometimes believe things about our bodies that just are not true. As a reminder of the need to apply scientific investigation to conventional wisdom, we previously discussed the evidence disputing seven commonly held medical myths.¹ The holiday season presents a further opportunity to probe medical beliefs recounted during this time of the year.

We generated a list of common medical or health beliefs related to the holidays and winter season and searched Medline for scientific evidence to support or refute these beliefs. If we couldn’t find any evidence in the medical literature, we searched the internet using Google./.../