25 myths about the human body – debunked!

We’ve all been through the cringey health class days, but was everything they taught true? Between myths passed on by parents (or grandparents), the failings of our school system, and misconceptions in the media, we’ve been taught a lot of false things. Read on to find out what “facts” about ourselves and our bodies are completely false.

1. Juices are not going to detoxify your body

Myth: Juice cleanses flush toxins out of your body.
This isn’t true. You already have organs that get rid of toxic chemicals in your blood: your kidneys and your liver. They’re busy taking the crap out of your blood so the body can excrete it while you’re downing criminally expensive juices. 


Most people have no idea what “toxins” they’re trying to remove, either. Sure, drinking juice can be healthy — if it doesn’t have loads of added sugar and still contains fiber. Thin, watery juice is probably doing next to nothing for you. Oh, and those colon cleanses? 

2. You don’t need to drink 8 glasses of water a day

Myth: You need to drink eight 8-oz glasses of water per day.

In 1945, the Food and Nutrition Board recommended that people need 2.5 liters of water per day. People took this to heart and started preaching the whole “eight glasses of water per day” ideal. But it seems no one read the recommendation’s next line: “Most of this quantity is contained in prepared foods.”
You consume water through fruits, vegetables, tea, juice, and other foods and beverages. While you should be drinking water, you don’t have to get all 2.5 liters straight from the source. There aren’t any real scientific recommendations for how much water everyone should drink per day because it’s highly dependent on things like what you eat and where you live.

3. You don’t swallow spiders while sleeping

Myth: You swallow eight spiders a year while sleeping.

This is probably a relief: you do not swallow eight spiders a year while sleeping. You probably don’t even swallow one. To spiders, we are like giant rocks in their landscapes. When we’re sleeping, we’re producing vibrations from breathing, pumping blood, and snoring.
Spiders are very attuned to vibrations, so they most likely find sleeping people to be scary. The eight-legged critters probably rarely approach sleeping people. Also, it’s highly likely you would wake up if you felt a spider crawling on your face. If it does happen, it’s a random occurrence, not a regular eight per year.

4. Watching TV up close doesn’t damage your eyesight

Myth: Sitting too close to the TV is bad for your eyesight.

Once upon a time, this myth was not a myth: The first television sets emitted radiation that actually could give people eye problems if they regularly sat near the TV. However, in the 1950s people began making TVs with shielding to keep the radiation from affecting viewers.


If you sit close to a TV and spend a long time watching it, you could experience eyestrain, but the symptoms aren’t permanent. Eyestrain, characterized by soreness, blurred vision, headaches, and other symptoms, is caused by looking at any digital screen for too long.

5. You don’t lose most of your body heat through your head

Myth: You lose 40 to 45 percent of your body heat through your head.

Apparently, this myth comes from a US military experiment in which people were dressed in Arctic suits and exposed to extraordinarily cold conditions. Their heads were left uncovered, so naturally, they lost most of their body heat that way. 
However, if you measured heat loss from someone in just swim trunks, the story would be very different. It’s more accurate to say that you lose about 10 percent of your body heat through your head when you aren’t dressed (it matters which body parts are clothed!). However, your face, head, and chest are more sensitive to temperature changes.

6. Your deoxygenated blood isn’t blue

Myth: Deoxygenated blood is blue, which is why your veins are blue.

Your eyes are lying to you: All of your blood is red. Some of it is bright red and some is dark red, depending on its oxygen content, but you aren’t blue-blooded like a horseshoe crab. So why are your veins blue? It’s a result of how light penetrates your skin.
Blue light wavelengths are reflected off your skin, not absorbed, so the veins appear blue. Human blood is red because it contains a lot of iron, which doesn’t absorb red light. Meanwhile, horseshoe crab blood is bright blue because it has a high copper content. Also, it’s saving lives in the medical field. 

7. We have more than five senses

Myth: Humans have five senses: sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing.

While these five senses may be helpful to think about when doing creative writing, they don’t tell the whole story. This myth originated with Aristotle, who came up with this list because they are the senses you can obviously see. But we humans sense all kinds of other things!
 We have proprioception, which is our ability to sense where our body parts are. For example, it’s how you can keep your eye on the ball and still catch it with your hand. And our ears don’t just hear, they also help with our sense of balance. Plus, we have thermoception, the sense of temperature, among other senses.

8. Your fingernails and hair do not grow after you die

Myth: Fingernails and hair keep growing after you die.

After a person dies, their cells stay functioning for differing amounts of time. Nerve cells die within a few minutes, but skin cells can live for around 12 hours. Fingernails, however, grow by making new cells, which require glucose. And since the supply of glucose no longer flows once you’re dead, you can’t make new cells, and your fingernails don’t grow.
It’s pretty much the same with hair: The growing process needs oxygen, which the follicle no longer gets once you die. This myth originates from the fact that when you die, your skin becomes dehydrated and retracts, making your nails and hair appear longer.

9. We use a lot more than 10% of our brain

Myth: A person only uses 10% of their brain throughout life.

It’s unclear exactly where this myth came from, but it appears to have originated with some scientist in the late 1800s or early 1900s (possibly a pretentious Albert Einstein). At certain moments, you may only use 10 percent of your brain, like while simply resting and thinking.
However, during the course of an average day, you will use basically every part of your brain (sorry to burst your bubble, but that terrible movie Lucy will never come true). In reality, 10 percent of our brain cells are neurons and the rest are glial cells, which surround neurons. Glial cells are poorly understood, but appear to contribute to our ability to think.

10. Your tongue isn’t zoned for tasting

Myth: Certain parts of your tongue have different taste receptors: sweetness is tasted with the tongue tip, salty and sour are tasted on the sides, and bitter receptors are toward the back.

The taste receptors for sweet, salty, sour, and bitter are actually scattered all across your tongue. This myth originated in 1901, from a paper by a German scientist. He found that the edges of your tongue are more sensitive to tastes than the middle.
Plus, it seems the different sections of the tongue might have a slight sensitivity toward one taste or another, but nothing as absolute as the oft-taught map. The roof of your mouth and throat even sense these different tastes. And this “tongue map” never accounted for the fifth taste: umami.

11. You can’t catch warts from a toad or frog

Myth: Touching a frog or toad can give you warts.

You were probably warned as a kid to not touch toads for fear of getting warts. Sure, toads are bumpy, but there’s no reason to think those bumps are contagious. However, the bumps behind a toad’s ears can contain poison.
So there is some danger in touching a toad, since touching their bumps can irritate the skin of humans or predators. Warts, on the other hand, are caused by a human virus. They are caught via touch, either skin-to-skin or through an object that both people handled. They’re usually pretty harmless. 

12. Sugar doesn’t make kids hyper (for the most part)

Myth: Eating sugar makes kids hyper.

For the most part, scientific studies have found that sugar has little to no effect on child behavior. There are kids who might be more sensitive to it, like maybe those with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, but it doesn’t have a huge effect on hyper behavior.
Parents are prejudiced against sugar; they believe it causes kids to be hyper and so that’s what they see. They’re not thinking about the fact that children often eat sugar at exciting events, like birthdays and holidays, which are already making them energetic. But while added sugar most likely isn’t making your kid hyper, it still isn’t all that healthy. 

13. Your hair doesn’t grow back thicker or darker

Myth: Shaved hair grows back darker and thicker than it was before.

You can’t win: First, you’re told to shave your body hair, then you’re told it’ll grow back even worse. Well, science can’t fix society’s expectations and disgust toward body hair, but it can give you a little peace of mind. When you shave, your hair is not growing back thicker or darker.
The hair appears a little different when it grows back because the original hair had a tapered tip; the newly cut hair is blunt at the end. That can make the hair feel coarse or stubbly for a bit. This applies to facial hair as well as body hair.

14. Humans did not evolve from chimps or monkeys

Myth: Humans evolved directly from chimpanzees and monkeys.

Yes, evolution is real, but people have plenty of misconceptions about how it works. All the animals we see today are the result of thousands of years or more of evolution. The species have all been changing and adapting to be their best selves today. So, no, humans did not evolve from chimpanzees or that cute little monkey.
The truth is that we share a common ancestor with the other apes. This ancestor lived around 7 million years ago (give or take a million), after which something changed to make it evolve into two separate lineages. One became gorillas, chimps, and bonobos, while the other became hominids and thus us humans. 

15. Alcohol does not kill your brain cells

Myth: Drinking alcohol will kill some of your brain cells.

Sure, pure alcohol probably could kill your brain cells. But no one is drinking pure alcohol (at least we hope not). When scientists compared the brains of alcoholics with non-alcoholics, they found no real difference in the number of neurons between the two groups.
What does happen when you drink is this: Your neurons’ dendrites, the things they use to communicate with each other, become damaged. This accounts for the impaired brain functioning you feel while drinking. Luckily, your body repairs the damage, so it’s temporary. However, excessive alcohol consumption can lead to other brain issues that aren’t myths.

16. There’s no such thing as a right brained or left brained person

Myth: Creative people predominantly use the right half of their brain while analytical people mainly use the left half.

This is simply just a figure of speech. Yes, there are people who are more artistic and those that tend toward numbers and data, but it most likely has nothing to do with which side of their brain they use. Like we already learned, everyone uses their whole brain (unless a part is damaged).
One study compared 1,000 young people and compared the active parts of their brain with their personalities. They found no sidedness. Certain functions are tied to particular regions, like the back of the brain is crucial for vision, but it seems everyone uses their whole brain.

17. Your appendix is (probably) not useless

Myth: The human appendix is a leftover organ that one of our ancestors once used but is now useless to us.

Your appendix is a small organ attached to your cecum, which connects your small intestine to your large intestine. For many years, scientists thought that it doesn’t do anything anymore and had a long lost function, like wisdom teeth. But science in the 21st century is suggesting that theory was wrong.
The new hypothesis is that your appendix acts as a home for wayward good bacteria. This is supported by a study that found people without their appendix are four times more likely to get the bacterial infection Clostridium difficile (aka C. diff). Plus, the appendix has evolved at least 30 separate times in different mammal lineages, yet rarely disappears.

18. Green or yellow mucus isn’t a sure sign of a bacterial infection

Myth: Green or yellow colored mucus means you have a bacterial infection.

Sure, it sometimes indicates that you have a bacterial infection. But the color can also be from a viral infection like the common cold. In this case, the nasal discharge might start out clear and then become colored from an increase of immune cells in it.
The mucus color can tell you something, though. Often, a bacterial infection will start with greenish, yellowish mucus while a viral infection will start with clear mucus, later developing the snotty color. Bacterial infections usually last longer and viral infections can’t be treated with antibiotics, but sometimes you can get both at once.

19. Coffee doesn’t sober you up

Myth: Drinking coffee while drunk will make you sober.

This isn’t true and it’s a rather dangerous myth. The truth is a little more complicated because the coffee does do something. About two hours after drinking alcohol, people get sleepy. So if you have coffee at this time, the caffeine makes you more alert and awake.
However, while coffee can remove the alcohol’s tiredness effect, it does not remove alcohol’s impairment of your cognitive abilities (remember, your dendrites are damaged). So this can be dangerous because the energy from the coffee can make people think they’re sober and ready to drive. Don’t do that.

20. Gum doesn’t stay in your stomach for seven years

Myth: Swallowed chewing gum stays in your stomach for seven years.

We’ve all heard the tale: Chewing gum stays in your stomach for seven years after you swallow it. Well, the first tip-off that this isn’t true is in the very specific number seven. Where did that come from? Who knows.
While it’s true your body can’t digest gum, the glob just passes through your digestive tract and back out again. However, if you were to swallow copious amounts of gum, it could block your intestines. So maybe don’t do that. Plus, that makes a pretty compelling argument to keep kids from swallowing their gum.

21. Tongue rolling is not genetic

Myth: The ability to roll or curl your tongue is genetic.

Whether you’re rolling your tongue into a taco or a triple taco (aka that wacky W shape), you’re not getting that gift from a single gene. Sure, in 1940 a geneticist published a paper saying that the tongue rolling ability came from a dominant gene, but in 1952 a different scientist disproved that. He found seven pairs of identical twins in which one could do it and the other couldn’t.
The original geneticist acknowledged his mistake, but the myth perpetuated. It’s in science textbooks and taught in schools. So what gives people the ability? It might be multiple genes that affect the ability, but some people can practice and learn to do it.

22. Fingerprints aren’t as unique as you’ve been told

Myth: Every fingerprint is completely unique.

There’s really no way for scientists to determine if each and every fingerprint is completely unique.  And considering someone actually did find two identical snowflakes  (at least, identical under a microscope) it seems that this common belief could be false.
Combine this lack of knowledge with the justice system and you have a bit of a mess. Jurors often believe that a fingerprint “match” is a sure sign of guilt. But when you take into consideration the fact that forensic scientists often only find partial prints at a crime scene, it becomes worrying if those are being “matched” to the wrong person.

23. Swimming after eating is just fine

Myth: You have to wait 30 minutes between eating and swimming, or else your blood will be diverted away from your limbs and toward your stomach, increasing your risk of drowning. Also, you might cramp.

While it’s true more blood will go into your stomach, your body has enough blood to keep everything working after you eat. Additionally, cramps seem to be unrelated to whether you eat before or not. During exercise, cramps could be caused by fatigue, dehydration, or electrolyte imbalances (or a mix).
Any time you exercise vigorously after eating you put yourself at risk of discomfort (and maybe vomiting), especially if you’re diving. But if you’re just splashing around, you probably won’t feel very different. The real concern is swimming after drinking alcohol, considering that actually impairs your physical abilities.

24. Early cancer detection and screening don’t necessarily save lives

Myth: Regular screening for all cancers and early detection for any cancer will save lives.

This one is pretty surprising! Yes, early detection is important when it comes to cancers like lung, cervical, and colon. And if you’re particularly at risk for those, regular screening to look for cancer can save your life. However, this isn’t the case for all cancer types.
There are times when regular screenings don’t decrease the number of people dying from a particular cancer, like thyroid cancer. Many cancers grow very slowly and will never be harmful, but early detection of these could lead someone to a costly, unneeded treatment.

25. Vaccines do not cause autism

Myth: Vaccines cause autism.

No, they do not. The popularity of this myth can be traced back to Andrew Wakefield; he was once a doctor, but had his ability to practice medicine revoked. Wakefield was determined to prove the MMR vaccine caused autism because he was being paid by angry parents to do so. Plus, he was planning to make money off of creating an alternate vaccine.
After he published his “study” (which had fake data) in 1998, scientists studied the perceived relationship between autism and vaccines until they were absolutely sure that vaccines do not cause autism. People still stubbornly believe this, despite the overwhelming evidence against it. 
 early detection

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