The Reality Check Episode 13

Bisphenol A structure

Calorie Restricted Diets, Wedding Superstitions, Bisphenol A, and Unlucky Numbers

Part 1:

Calorie Restricted Diets

It's a way to structure your meals to optimize the nutrition of the calories you eat. Preventing cancer growth and decrease of mental problems. 

There have been a research where they got 36 people together, half of them ate the Calorie Restricted Diet already ate the CR Diet for 6 years, and the rest ate the normal American food. By the end of the test, the ones who ate the Diet are much more healthy. (They didn't tell us how they did the experiment.) 

Scientists did find that eating the CR Diet does decrease spontaneous tumors to grow because it decreases the cell divisions.

It is shown in numerous species that eating the CR Diet does help with longevity (no evidence for humans yet). Researchers do think that the animals that live in the wild, their diets are very similar to the CR Diet and it does help them put their body growth on pause during hormesis.

It's basically just stuff we eat everyday, just cutting back on the calories and the sugar. The plan would tell you to split the meals into smaller meals to have the stomach in a more relaxing state. 

There are plenty of pretty solid evidence , but even if it doesn't prevent a lot of diseases, it's still a healthier way to eat. 

The downsides are that many foods are prohibited, no big amounts of quick carbs, and no clear restriction between different metabolic types. Another downside is that fertility is reduced in females. 

WARNING: It is only for people post puberty and post giving birth. Not for kids or for women who are trying to have kids. 

Part 2:

Wedding Superstitions

The most commonly known one is that the groom shouldn't see the bride on the wedding day, and sometimes it varies to only shouldn't see the bride in the wedding dress. It's probably just to highen the emotion when the groom sees her for the first time in the dress.  It also might be because when you keep something the person really likes from him for a period of time, they will learn to appreciate it more when they see it again. But it would not jinx the wedding if he did see her before. 

There is another one called the Bouquet Toss, and obviously the one who catches it barely ever gets married next. 

There are many different wedding superstitions, but no one really bothered to look into on that. It's just like for some traditions, except people just want this event to go as good as possible. 

A lot of these are made up during the Victorian times. 

Part 3:

Is Bisphenol A harmful?

BPA is one of the most produced chemicals, it's in many plastic products. It's found in 90% of the place in the US. But does that mean it's harmful to us? There are many animal studies and experiments on mice to test BPA. It has shown many problems in the mice, like interfering with uterine development during pregnancy, breast cancer, behavior changes, and various other issues. There are only a few human studies, and because it's on humans, we still don't know much about the effects it has on humans. So far as we know it might have hormone destruction, diabetes, and cardiovascular problems. 

In October 2008, Canada became the first country to ban the import and sale of products that have BPA in it. The Federal Government also announced it will devot about 1.3 million to study the chemical. 

Science Myth of the Week: Numbers mean more than they appear to be?

Round numbers are especially important and significant to us. We use the base 10 system that's why, people have 50th anniversary and not 49th anniversary. People partied like crazy for the year 2000, and not so much for other years. But we also have some other numbers such as number 13. This belief that this is an unlucky number has existed in Europe for a long time already. Judas was the 13th guest at the last supper. Examples like that makes people wonder why it's an unlucky number. In Schism, it's actually considered a lucky number. It was because of the sound which sounds like something that respects their God. Another example is that in the West, number 7 is a lucky number, but in China, number 7 is unlucky because the 7th month is when the spirits come out. 

There are many other significant numbers which have different meanings in different cultures.