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• Synopsis
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• Interview

• Biography
• More titles by Aaron Carroll

Synopsis

Men with big feet have big penises

You should drink at least eight glasses of water a day

Sugar makes kids hyper

Eating at night makes you fat

Chewing gum stays in your stomach for seven years

You lose 40% of your body heat through your head

Every day, you hear or think things about your body and health that are just not true. Maybe you saw them on TV, read them in magazines or heard them from friends (or even a doctor). This book is for anyone who has wondered about the truth behind these myths.

Funny, wacky and full of fascinating facts, Don't Swallow Your Gum explains why so many of those weird and worrisome things we think about our bodies are mistaken.

Reviews

Interview

Tell us a bit about your book, Don’t Swallow Your Gum: what first gave you the idea to write it?
We first started investigating health myths as a way to remind doctors that they need to consider the research behind the things they believe.  The more we looked at these medical myths, the more we realized how widely believe they are and how much fun it is to explore the evidence for what’s true about our bodies and what is not true.

As professional doctors do you find yourself faced with a lot of patients who believe the kind of things you set out to prove were untrue in the book?
These myths are widely held by people all over the world.  Our patients are just as likely to believe them as anyone else, and they do!  Moreover, doctors are people, too, and are just as guilty of believing many of them. 

Why or how do you think these myths spring up?
There is no one good answer for this. It depends on the myth. Some of the myths have staying power because we hear them from people we trust as experts (like parents, teachers, and – yes - doctors). Sometimes, these myths seem to take hold because they help us explain what’s going on around us. As human beings, we like to come up with patterns to explain the things going on around us.  If we see 2 things happening at the same time – like a kid acting out when they are eating sugar – we like to think that those 2 things are related to each other (that the sugar caused the bad behaviour).  In fact, this might just be a coincidence. Or there may be something else going on that really is causing the problem (like being at a birthday party with a bunch of other kids, or staying up late). Many of these myths also seek to give explanations to questions for which we have no answers. People are not likely to give up beliefs that help them explain the world.

The book is a lot of fun but clearly has a serious point; was it always your intention to try to inform while keeping things enjoyable?
Absolutely! We want people to ask “why”. We want to talk about the science and show why we have drawn the conclusions we do, but we certainly hope that readers have fun while learning.

What do you think is the most commonly-believed myth in the book, and why?
It’s hard to pick just one! Almost everyone seems to think that going out in cold weather will make you sick. We have heard this one all around the world. People want explanations for how and why they get sick, and this seems to be a really popular one.

Are American hospitals more like Scrubs, ER or Grey’s Anatomy?
Rachel thinks Scrubs gives the most accurate (and funny) depiction of American hospitals, but Aaron has delusions that his training was more like ER (because he has a tendency to attract bombs and gunshots).

Were there any medical myths you left out of the book?
There are so many of these myths that we could always keep adding to the book! Everyday, people tell us others that we should investigate.

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