Contrary to popular belief, poinsettias are not toxic to people or animals, suicides do not increase over the Christmas holidays and sugar does not make children hyperactive. Also, Wales winning the rugby grand slam does not influence the death of popes.
Those are some of the conclusions of reports in the British Medical Journal’s annual Christmas issue, a compilation of the weird and lighthearted papers that its editors accumulate over the year.
The supposed toxicity of poinsettias has been a subject of warnings as long as the red-and-white flowers have been associated with the Christmas holiday, but reports from poison control centers do not support the warnings, said Drs. Rachel Vreeman and Aaron Carroll of the Indiana University School of Medicine.
They reviewed nearly 900 calls to such centers reporting poinsettia consumption and found that none of the incidents resulted in serious illness. Moreover, feeding experiments in animals show no effects even at very high consumption, they found.
Similarly, they reviewed data on suicides in the United States for the past 35 years and found no increase before, during or after the holidays. In fact, despite widespread talk about winter gloom’s effects on humans, they found that suicides peak in the summer and are lowest in winter.
They conclude that people actually receive additional emotional and social support during the holidays, minimizing suicidal thoughts.
Other myths also are not supported by fact, they said. A variety of studies show that children who consume large amounts of sugar are no more hyperactive than those who don’t. But parents who think their children have eaten sugar, even when they haven’t, tend to rate them as being more hyperactive.
The ill-mannered behavior, the authors wrote, was “all in the parents’ minds.”
Other myths that have been disproved: not wearing a hat causes one to lose excessive body heat and eating at night makes you more likely to pack on the pounds. Also, they found, there is no consistent cure for a hangover.
Urban folklore in the United Kingdom holds that every time Wales wins the rugby grand slam, a pope dies — except for 1978 when Wales was really good, and two popes died. A grand slam occurs when, in a given season, a nation beats all other competing teams in every match.
Wales won a grand slam this year, and researchers were concerned for the health of Pope Benedict XVI.
Dr. Gareth Payne of University Hospital Wales in Cardiff and his colleagues examined historical records and found that, of the eight pontiffs who died since rugby events became common, five died in grand slam years. Wales accounted for only three of those grand slams, however, with England and Scotland achieving the others.
