When everyone around you seems to share the latest “bug” making the rounds, what can you do to keep from coming down with it yourself? Here’s your cheat sheet: According to Dr. Neal Schachter from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, be sure to take some Vitamin D. A Vitamin D deficiency increases our chances of getting upper respiratory infections, and a third of us are deficient right now. Doctors recommend somewhere between 600-1000 international units a day. Then, you may want to follow that up with garlic. Although it isn’t as strong in capsule form, research shows garlic can still shorten the length of a cold, and may even prevent one. What you can skip? Echinacea. Study after study shows it doesn’t prevent colds or help us recover more quickly. It may indeed be that time - time for you to share this health intel with your friends, and tell them about The John Tesh Radio Show from 6-9 PM on WTYM.
Now some “fun” intelligence:
* *What if you never cut your hair?* If you think being scissor-shy will turn you into Rapunzel, that may not be the case. According to Dr. Audrey Kunin, everyone’s got a point when their hair stops growing, but it varies. Apparently, not only is balding genetic, but so is hair length. So who has the longest hair in the world? Possibly Mr. Hay of Vietnam. He’s going for the world record. He hasn’t cut his hair in 31 years, and it’s 20 feet long! But he might have set another record too - his hair was last washed 6 years ago!
* *What if you touched jumper-cable clamps together? Well, if the other end was connected to a battery, you’d complete the circuit and create a huge spark. But before you start your own fireworks show, you /could also blow big chunks of metal out of the clip’s teeth, fry the battery, or catch the cables on fire if they’re cheap.
* *What if you left your airplane seat reclined during a landing? Well, if you did, you could get whiplash. Dr. Jeffrey Wang says that if your head is fully against the seat, there’s not much risk of muscle strain. But just try telling the flight attendant that. If you don’t comply with flight-crew safety instructions, you could land yourself in court.
