From LiveScience.com (http://www.livescience.com/health/)
FIVE MYTHS ABOUT MEN
Men with big feet also have big...
It is true that the development of penises and toes (as well as clitorises and fingers) are influenced by the same gene. But the length of one does not predict the length of the other. In a study of more than 3,000 men, no correlation was found between the self-reported size of feet and that of the crown jewels. Skeptical of a man's ability to size himself up, some researchers have, well, taken things into their own hands. For example, a 2002 study, headed by Jyoti Shah at St. Mary's Hospital in London, compared foot size to carefully measured privates (all 104 penises were stretched to their longest length for consistency.) No correlation was found.
If you shave your beard or head, the hair comes back faster, thicker, and coarser.
"If that were true, we'd have a cure for male pattern baldness," said Dr. Aaron Carroll of Indiana University and co-author of "Don't Swallow your Gum: Myths, Half-truths and Outright Lies About Your Body and Health" (St. Martin's Griffin. 2009) Stubble may look darker and coarser because it has not yet been exposed to sun and other wearing elements. Once it grows in, it looks identical to the hair that was shaved away, Caroll said.
Semen is loaded with calories.
Seminal fluid is made up of water and nutrients such as vitamin C, calcium and magnesium. It also contains the sugar fructose but only 5 to 7 calories worth per, ah, serving, according to Dr. Rachel Vreeman, also of Indiana University and Carroll's co-author "It is unlikely to create a diet issue, but this should not be used in an argument for whatever," Vreeman said.
Single guys have better sex lives than married guys.
Conventional wisdom says married men get nothing but slumber in their bedrooms, while single studs are "closing the deal." But it is actually those with the vows that are getting it on. A 2006 study by the National Opinion Research Center found that husbands get lucky between 28 percent to more than 400 percent more often than bachelors, depending on their age. And it is not a ho-hum roll in the matrimonial bed; not only are married women more likely to be orgasmic, married men also give and get more oral sex. Kind of gives a new twist to the phrase, "I do."
Men think about sex every 7 seconds.
"That is as many times as we breathe everyday," Caroll said. "Nobody has that type of mental stamina." In one of the nation's most comprehensive surveys about sexual habits in the United states, completed by Edward Laumann and colleagues in 1994, 43 percent of men reported thinking about sex not even once a day, but rather somewhere between a couple times a week to a couple times a month.
FIVE MYTHS ABOUT WOMEN
A women can't get pregnant during her period.
While a woman is unlikely to conceive during menstruation, "nothing, when it comes to pregnancy, is impossible," said Aaron Carroll of Indiana University and co-author of "Don't Swallow Your Gum: Myths, Half-truths and Outright Lies About Your Body and Health" (St. Martin's Griffin, 2009). Once inside a woman, sperm can wait for an egg for up to a week. Ovulation can occur soon after, or even during, the bleeding phase of a woman's menstrual cycle, giving patient sperm the chance to get lucky. The timing method of birth control doesn't work well, Carroll said, agreeing that couples who practice it are often called: parents.
Menopause causes sex drive to nosedive.
The Change is not necessarily one that happens in the bedroom. A comprehensive survey of sexual habits in the United States, completed by Edward Laumann and colleagues in 1994, found that roughly half of women in their fifties have sex several times a month. While hot flashes and other discomforts may make a women temporarily not in the mood, there is not a direct link between menopause and sexual desire, Vreeman said. So if you are entering the Big M, there is no reason to say good-bye to the Big O.
Antibiotics make birth control pills unreliable.
"Many physicians even believe this," Carroll said. Alone, birth control pills fail about one percent of the time. And that failure rate is unchanged when taken with the vast majority of antibiotics, Carroll said. A possible exception is rifampin, the antibiotic prescribed for tuberculosis. Rifampin does lower pregnancy-protecting hormone levels induced by birth control pills, but whether the effect is large enough to increase pregnancy risk is unclear. Carroll thinks rifampin research spurred the antibiotic/birth control rumor. "Sometimes people say things and they just take off," he said.
Women and men need equal sleep.
Tossing and turning not only causes women more psychological distress, it also raises their insulin and inflammation levels -- risk factors for compromised health, found a 2008 study of 210 people led by Edward Suarez at Duke University. A study of more than 6,000 participants, led by researchers at the University of Warwick in 2007, found that women who slept five or less hours a night were twice as likely to suffer from hypertension than women who slept for seven or more hours. Among men, there was no such relationship. Sleeping Beauty may be better off waking up on her own watch.
A doctor can tell if a woman is a virgin.
Even when using 10-fold magnification, doctors can not accurately sort virgins from the sexually-active, several studies have reported. It is not as simple as looking for a hole in the hymen because, well, there is always a hole in the hymen. "Some people think the hymen seals off the vagina [until virginity is lost], but that is just not true," said Dr. Rachel Vreeman of Indiana University and Carroll's co-author of "Don't Swallow Your Gum." In the rare cases when it is sealed, period blood builds in the uterus and causes severe medical problems, she said.
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