Damn those ad men! Damn them to heck~!
It turns out that one of the more persistent myths – and one that I myself have wondered over – is that we only use 10% of our brains. And that if we were only able to “turn on” the other 90%, then wowee – we’d be superheroes.
The Guardian has a great bit on this and other stupid medical myths:
Often it is said, for example, that we use just 10% of our brains.
Magician Uri Geller readily spreads this myth as an explanation for why
he can bend spoons; he claims to use more of his brain than the rest of
us. Truth be told, we use 100% of our brains – even while watching a
silly Uri Geller magic show. That 10% figure was invented in the 30s by
ad men in America selling self-help pamphlets
Sheesh. I feel like a total jackass right about now. This next paragraph makes it even worse:
How can we be sure that Geller is not even 10% right about the brain?
For one, commonsense: never has a doctor said, “You’ll be fine.The
bullet is lodged in the 90% part of the brain you don’t use.”
Biologically, any part of the body will deteriorate without use. Legs
shrivel in a cast, and neurons in the brain die as a result of diseases
such as Alzheimer’s and dementia. And if you want proof in pictures,
modern scans all show that the entire brain is active.
This is an absolutely fascinating article – it takes on the idea that magnetism somehow helps in healing (which if it were true that magnets could affect the iron in your blood, then we’d all blow up in MRIs), the notion that the tongue has mapped-out areas which are more sensitive to certain kinds of tastes (which still apparently influences the makers of fancy wineglasses), and oxygen-fortified drinks and the ingestion of antioxidants…
Yet free radicals are crucial for the body to make energy, a
process that occurs in the cell’s mitochondria. Also, free radicals,
such as hydrogen peroxide, are a key component to the body’s immune
system. Too many antioxidants – that is, megadoses of supplements –
disturb this natural process.Indeed, antioxidants such has
vitamin C and beta carotene have been shown to fuel cancer growth, and
selenium can be toxic. Conversely, there is no evidence that high doses
of antioxidants help the body in any way – except (a big maybe here)
vitamin E.
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