Aaron Caroll MD
Book review–Don't Swallow Your Gum!: Myths, Half-Truths, and Outright Lies About Your Body and Health
I just finished reading Don't Swallow Your Gum!: Myths, Half-Truths, and Outright Lies About Your Body and Health (ISBN:031253387X, 2009) written by Aaron Carroll MD and Rachel Vreeman MD, both pediatricians and researchers at the University of Indiana School of Medicine.
First of all, the book is an amusing, easy read, using terms like “snot” and “poo” to describe bodily secretions. At some 200 pages, it was a quick read, not requiring a lot of time. Obviously, the book was written for a wide audience, debunking many pseudoscientific myths about health. For those of us who demand supporting research, it has a vast list of primary and secondary research citations for further reading. In fact, for me, those citations are going to be invaluable in future articles.
The book goes about debunking silly myths such as “don’t swallow your gum because it will get stuck in your intestine for 5 (10, 20, whatever) years” or the old “five second rule” which we all suspected wasn’t wise. There was one chapter on “double dipping”, which was popularized on a Seinfeld episode many years ago, in which the authors discussed research that showed that double dipping does in fact transfer a lot of germs from the chip to the dip. Not that I would confess to being a double dipper, but I may not be a single-dipper at a party after reading this book! Read More...
First of all, the book is an amusing, easy read, using terms like “snot” and “poo” to describe bodily secretions. At some 200 pages, it was a quick read, not requiring a lot of time. Obviously, the book was written for a wide audience, debunking many pseudoscientific myths about health. For those of us who demand supporting research, it has a vast list of primary and secondary research citations for further reading. In fact, for me, those citations are going to be invaluable in future articles.
The book goes about debunking silly myths such as “don’t swallow your gum because it will get stuck in your intestine for 5 (10, 20, whatever) years” or the old “five second rule” which we all suspected wasn’t wise. There was one chapter on “double dipping”, which was popularized on a Seinfeld episode many years ago, in which the authors discussed research that showed that double dipping does in fact transfer a lot of germs from the chip to the dip. Not that I would confess to being a double dipper, but I may not be a single-dipper at a party after reading this book! Read More...