(MENAFN- NewsIn.Asia) Feb 21 (CNN) – Beliefs developed when young about what is or isn’t healthy can follow us for a lifetime, experts say. But what if those beliefs don’t hold up to scientific scrutiny?
Here are eight assumptions about diet, exercise and sleep that fail to meet the sniff test.
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Myth No. 1: Popular diets are everywhere so they must work
Lose weight fast. It’s enticing, but the typical fad diet – even the more established ones, such as keto – emphasize limiting nutritional intake, often by banning entire food groups. Keto, for example, outlaws grains, legumes and fruits except for a handful of berries. Lopping off important micronutrients isn’t healthy, and restrictive diets“tend to fail in the long run,” according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“That type of restriction in the long term leads to weight gain, not weight loss, and it often leads to weight cycling,” said Nina Taylor, education manager at the National Alliance for Eating Disorders.
Going on and off a diet is called weight cycling, or yo-yo dieting, and studies have linked that eating pattern to higher body fat, blood pressure and cholesterol, all of which raises the risk of coronary heart disease and sudden cardiac death in women.
Eating a plant-based diet, watching sugar intake and limiting mindless eating are great ways to add years to your life, research has shown.
Myth No. 2: It’s OK to take your smartphone to bed
Who doesn’t want to check their social feeds one last time before lights out? But research has linked nighttime overuse of smartphones to trouble falling asleep, reduced sleep duration, daytime tiredness and even mood disorders.
When you use your phone, you’re flooding your eyes with blue light, which cuts off production of melatonin – that’s the hormone that regulates your body clock. Experts suggest banning any LED spectrum light for a full hour before sleep.
Bottom line:
Don’t bring your cell phone and its harmful blue light to bed. Use an old-fashioned alarm clock to help you wake up.
Myth No. 3 Social media can inspire…
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