10 Health 'Facts' That are Actually False

The 'can of cola is the same as a drug high' diagram circulates the internet every six months or so, and we all shudder and decide we'll never touch the sweet black stuff again. The latest full year statistics (2014) showed Coca Cola's turnover was $45,998 million (USD), so at least one of us has caved. The addictive property is usually attributed to the sugar in drinks, but psychiatrist Hisham Ziaudden says this is difficult to prove.

Bacteria can, and will, contaminate your food within milliseconds. The dirtiness of the surface your food falls onto determines how dirty the food becomes, time has very little to do with it.

This is just a trick of advertising that began in the Victorian era, perhaps to do with the fact cocoa was imported from the exotic reaches of the Empire, and being treated to it made us feel more amorous.

Gum only ever 'gets stuck' if it's been eaten with other things which you shouldn't have been eating (think Lego blocks), and the gum sticks to them.

While eating before drinking will delay alcohol from entering your bloodstream, it won't stop it completely. It might help your hangover, but not the level of drunkenness.

When you die, as well as there being nothing, all your tissue shrinks and shrivels up as you disintegrate in your wooden box buried beneath the earth. This shrinkage gives the illusion of your nails and hair growing, but they're actually staying the same.

Your blood is never blue, (unless you are an evil Illuminati reptile person), it is only red or darker red when it's deoxygenated. The reason your veins appear blue is because you're looking at them through layers and layers of tissue.

Honey in a 'health bar' (another con) is no better than corn syrup sugar. The actual sugar, whether natural or synthetic has the same effect on your body. The difference is a candy bar filled with corn syrup usually contains more synthetic sugar than a nutri-granola-crunch thing. The health difference is determined by amount not by the derivation of the ingredient.

Starting with this good news for the sweet toothed, the idea that chocolate causes acne or spots is not true at all.

Except nobody has ever drowned because they'd eaten within an hour of dipping their toes into the water. Obviously a swim with a tummy full of grub might be a bit uncomfortable, but the idea that digestion draws blood away from your muscles, causing them to cramp, is untrue.