This section reveals some of the common and intriguing myths in the world of medicine and discusses some of the exciting recent medical discoveries and how they affect your world.


6. "YOU HAVE TO WAIT 30 MINUTES AFTER EATING BEFORE GOING SWIMMING"

This is a classic "myth" that likely originated in the minds of parents as a way to relax after a nice big meal and delay having to watch the kids in the lake. Most people believe this is a reasonable rule to follow because we've all heard that blood rushes from every crevice of the body to our stomach in order to absorb the cheesecake we just inhaled. However, the actual process of digestion in the stomach organ lasts about 4 hours and the entire waste management system can take up to 20 hours...depending on what we ate and how anal an individual is. So, if it was true that we had to wait for digestion to finish before splashing about, we would have to fast the day before...