British journal takes on the wild and the weird
Holiday issue debunks myths
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LOS ANGELES - Contrary to popular belief, poinsettias are not toxic to people or animals, suicides do not increase over the Christmas holidays, and sugar does not make children hyperactive. Also, Wales winning the rugby grand slam does not influence the death of popes, and douching with
Those are some of the conclusions of reports in the British Medical Journal's annual Christmas issue, a compilation of the weird and light-hearted papers its editors accumulate over the year. In a related vein, a report in the journal Lancet details the curious case of a woman who fainted every time she ate a sandwich.
The supposed toxicity of poinsettias has been a subject of warnings as long as the red and white flowers have been associated with the Christmas holiday, but numerous reports from poison control centers do not support the warnings, according to Dr. Rachel C. Vreeman and Dr. Aaron E. Carroll of the Indiana University School of Medicine.
They reviewed nearly 900 calls to such centers reporting poinsettia consumption and found that none of the incidents resulted in serious illness and few even produced any symptoms. Moreover, feeding experiments in animals show no effects even at very high consumption, they found.
Similarly, they reviewed data on suicides in the United States for the last 35 years and found no increase before, during or after the holidays. In fact, despite widespread talk about winter gloom's effects on humans, they found that suicides peak in the summer and are lowest in winter. They conclude that people actually receive additional emotional and social support during the holidays, minimizing suicidal thoughts.
Other myths also are not supported by fact, they said. A variety of studies show that children who consume large amounts of sugar are no more hyperactive than those who don't. But parents who think their kids have eaten sugar, even when they haven't, tend to rate them as being more hyperactive.
The ill-mannered behavior, the authors wrote, was "all in the parents' minds."
Other myths that have been disproved: not wearing a hat causes one to lose excessive body heat and eating at night makes you more likely to pack on the pounds. Also, they found, there is no cure for a hangover that consistently works.
Coca-Cola douches for pregnancy prevention were a part of folklore in the 1950s and 1960s, before the advent of the contraceptive pill. People thought the acidity of the soda would kill sperm and that the classic Coke bottle provided a convenient "shake and shoot" applicator.
Dr. Deborah J. Anderson of the Boston University School of Medicine has reported previously that Coke can impede the mobility of sperm in the test-tube. But further study, she said, shows that sperm get to the cervical canal so quickly that post-coital spritzing is ineffective.
For it to work, she wrote, the soda would have to be put in the vagina before sex, "but that would undoubtedly be messy."
Urban folklore in the United Kingdom holds that every time Wales wins the rugby grand slam, a pope dies - except for 1978 when Wales was really good, and two popes died. A grand slam occurs when, in a given season, a nation beats all other competing teams in every match.
