The Truth Behind 9 Old Wives’ Tales About Your Health

4. Sitting too close to the TV will make your eyesight worse

If you’re a TV binger and like to sit close to the screen, rest assured: Doing so will not make your eyesight worse. “It can cause eye strain and fatigue, as well as dry-eye issues from reduced blink rates, but it will not worsen your prescription,” says Cynthia D’Auria, director of the optometric and contact lens service at Tufts Medical Center.

However, D’Auria says it’s important to prioritize ocular health, so it’s a good idea to back up when sitting near the television to reduce strain and fatigue. If you find yourself needing to inch closer to the television than normal, it may be time to see your eye doctor, as this may be a sign that your eyesight is deteriorating and you could benefit from a new or adjusted prescription.

Also, make sure to give yourself breaks from screen time in general, as research shows that tear production significantly decreased in ultra-high-definition TV watchers. In the same study, people over the age of 50 and those with dry-eye syndrome reported having more ocular discomfort after watching television.

5. Spicy foods can cause ulcers

You ordered your Thai food hot, which for the average American can be asking for trouble. Are you in danger of triggering an ulcer? The answer is no — although you might burn your mouth a little.

“Spicy foods can make gastritis worse, but the most common cause of ulcers is actually a bacterial infection,” says Linder. Unless you are going into a meal with preexisting digestive upset, spiciness is not likely to be an issue. But if you already have an inflamed stomach, a condition like irritable bowel syndrome or an existing ulcer, eating spicy food could make you feel worse, Linder suggests.

In addition to bacteria, most commonly H. pylori, long-term use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) like aspirin and ibuprofen (Advil) has been linked to peptic ulcer disease. (We also used to think that stress causes ulcers, but that’s not true either, according to the National Institutes of Health.)

Interestingly, 2006 research found that chile pepper may potentially be beneficial for your gut by increasing blood flow to the gastrointestinal (GI) tract to protect it. And spicy foods seem to come with benefits. One study found that people who eat spicy foods six to seven times a week had a 14 percent reduced mortality rate. So you can keep eating your food hot — as long as you’re OK with getting a little sweaty at the dinner table.

6. We eat eight spiders a year in our sleep

If you were a nighttime mouth breather as a child, you probably heard one old wives’ tale that was enough to scare you into becoming a nasal breather: Humans swallow an average of eight spiders while sleeping each year. Yikes!

Fortunately, this is not likely for several reasons. “Spiders like to stay in their webs and, unless they view you as prey, aren’t going to crawl into bed,” says Joe Alton, author of The Survival Medicine Handbook: The Essential Guide for When Help Is Not on the Way. “That would have to be a pretty big spider,” he adds. If you have bedbugs, spiders might come down to your bed to chomp on those, getting near you in the process, but if that’s the case, Alton says you have bigger problems than the possibility of swallowing a spider!

Next, even when asleep, our bodies produce noise or vibrations that spiders don’t like. “Things like a beating heart, breathing or snoring all cause a spider’s spidey sense to say, ‘Stay away!’ ” explains Alton. And lastly, our lips contain sensory nerve fibers, so it’s unlikely we wouldn’t feel a spider crawling on them in the night, even if we’re deep sleepers!

The bottom line? “Swallowing a spider would be a very, very rare event, not something that occurs as often as eight times a year — and probably not eight times in a lifetime,” Alton confirms, reassuringly.

7. If swallowed, gum takes seven years to digest

Most of us don’t make a habit of swallowing gum, but every now and then, it can happen. We grew up hearing that if you ingest gum, your body basically can’t digest it. So, if you accidentally swallow some gum, is it true that your digestive system will take a hit? Fortunately, no. “It is certainly not true that gum takes years to pass through the stomach,” says Andrew Boxer, a gastroenterologist with Gastroenterology Associates of New Jersey.

It is true, however, that we do not actually digest gum, although it typically passes through the digestive tract in a matter of hours to days. “Very rarely patients can form a bezoar [an indigestible conglomerate trapped in the gastrointestinal tract], which can stay in the digestive system, typically the stomach, for a long time,” adds Boxer. A bezoar can be made of hair, vegetable matter or other substances, including gum. But for this to happen, Boxer notes, someone would typically need to have an underlying disorder and swallow a massive amount of gum.

8. You must wait an hour after eating before swimming

“It is a myth that you need to wait to swim after eating,” says Boxer. The thought here was that when you eat, blood flow is diverted to your digestive system, and this interferes with blood flow to the muscles. “While this is true, it is insignificant to inhibit any necessary blood flow for muscles to swim,” Boxer adds. Some people are a bit more tired while digesting or might have some abdominal cramping, but this is not dangerous enough to affect swimming.

In a review published in 2011, the American Red Cross Scientific Advisory Committee weighed in: “No reported cases of eating before swimming causing or contributing to fatal or non-fatal drowning are reported in any of the literature searched.” They concluded that “currently available information suggests that eating before swimming is not a contributing risk for drowning and can be dismissed as a myth.”

Still, you may want to avoid swimming after eating a huge meal, as you’ll probably feel tired, bloated and unmotivated to swim. Boxer suggests avoiding large, heavy, greasy meals and meals that are hard to digest or have high sugar loads before getting in the pool. 

9. Joints ache when the weather is about to change

Do your joints ache or do you experience muscle stiffness when it gets cold? Although some call this an old wives’ tale, others are quick to deem it legitimate. A survey of 200 participants with knee osteoarthritis found that changes in barometric pressure and ambient temperature made their knee pain worse, while other studies have found no association between rainy days and knee or back pain.

The jury is still out on this one, but experts can’t deny that when it comes to joints aching when the weather cools down, patient experience tends to agree. “We all know that our joints feel worse when there is a low-pressure system coming in, which is why people say they know when the weather is changing,” Luks explains. “Interestingly, research into this topic claims that there is no association between weather and joint pain, but my joints don’t agree with that.”

Linder confirms that this is something he frequently hears as well. “There’s no denying that people when the weather changes say that their joints ache more,” he says. “And that’s been described over and over and over again, so there’s no denying people’s experiences.”