Five health tips to ignore

Corbis

If you own a trendy fitness-tracking device such as the Fitbit or the new Vivofit, you’re probably diligent about getting your recommended 10,000 steps per day (the equivalent of five miles). But you might not need to move as much as you think.

According to Catrine Tudor-Locke, director of the Walking Behavior Laboratory at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, taking 10,000 steps isn't really necessary. “I wouldn't discourage people from taking 10,000 daily steps, but it’s not a magic or even scientifically proven number,” Tudor-Locke tells Yahoo Shine. The number originates from the 1960s, when Japanese pedometers were marketed under the name "manpo-kei" which translates to "10,000-steps meter." And as fitness trackers took off in the United States, companies adapted the goal of 10,000 steps.

A number that better aligns with recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is between 7,000 and 8,000 steps. “The CDC says people should aim for 150 minutes of exercise per week, which translates to this range,” says Tudor-Locke. Given that theaverage adult walks roughly 5,900 steps per day, attaining this goal is as simple as taking a 30-minute walk in the morning. Doable, right?

Here are four more health adages that could use an overhaul:

Drinking eight glasses of water a day keeps you hydrated: Whoever concocted this theory was obviously very thirsty. The truth is there’s no specific amount of water people should drink. The rule for eight glasses stems from scientific research in 1945, which suggested that people consume 2.5 liters of water per day, although a primary clinical study was never cited. However, in 2012, researchers in Australia and New Zealand declared eight glasses per day a huge overestimation and unnecessary, because people get much of their fluid intake from fruit, vegetables, and other liquids — even coffee. A small British study recently found that coffee has the same hydrating effects as water.The lesson: If you're thirsty, drink; if you're not, don't.

Dark chocolate is healthier than milk chocolate: More than a decade ago chocolate was rebranded a superfood after research published in the journal Nature found that dark chocolate contained a higher concentration of oxidant-rich cocoa than milk chocolate. “That's still true; however, the average dark chocolate bar won’t necessarily contain more cocoa flavonols than one that’s milk chocolate,” Patricia Bannan, registered dietitian and author of Eat Right When Time Is Tight, tells Yahoo Shine. Although the packaging on a dark chocolate bar may read, "72 percent cocoa," that’s no indication of the actual flavonol percentage, which fluctuates greatly during processing. The best way to get your flavonol fill is to consume cocoa in its purest form, in a pill supplement or as a powder. "Or, buy high-quality dark chocolate which likely contains more flavonols due to less processing,” says Bannan.

Sugar makes kids hyper: There are plenty of reasons to keep kids away from added sugars — obesity and dental disease, for example. Also, the recently published World Health Organization guidelines advise people to consume less than 25 grams of sugar per day. But hyperactivity, long believed to be a side effect in children who consume too much, isn’t a worry, according to the results of 12 studies that tried and failed to link sugar to behavioral problems in kids. “None of them detected any differences in behavior between children who had eaten sugar and those who hadn’t," wrote Aaron Carroll MD, MS, a professor of pediatrics and assistant dean for Research Mentoring at Indiana University School of Medicine, on his blog The Incidental Economist. "These studies included sugar from candy, chocolate, and natural sources. Some of them were short-term, and some of them were long term. Some of them focused on children with ADHD. Some of them even included only children who were considered 'sensitive' to sugar. In all of them, children did not behave differently after eating something full of sugar or something sugar-free.”

Stretching before a run prevents injury: If it feels good to stretch your limbs before a run, by all means, keep doing it. But according to a study of 3,000 runners published in the journal American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, the risk of injury is the same for people who stretch before runs as for those who don't. If you love to stretch, keep it short. A recent study found that stretches that last longer than one minute could be detrimental to performance. Better yet, save stretching until after you workout when it's considered to be most effective.

Source