Fact or myth?

It’s difficult to ignore your mother when she tells you to “wrap up warm” or “dry your hair or you’ll get a cold”- but colds are not caused by the cold: they are caused by viruses! Walking around with wet hair or a T-shirt in winter may look silly, and will make you feel cold, but you will only get a cold or the flu, if you come into contact with an infected person. The best way to avoid viruses like these is to wash your hands regularly when there’s a bug going around.

Despite the huge medical advances that have been made over the last century, the common cold is still incurable and medicine does little for the symptoms either. Antibiotics won’t help as your cold is caused by one of over 200 viruses. The only time you may need them is if you develop a throat or ear infection. Otherwise, go to bed and drink lots of fluids and wait till you get better.

Acne is a hormonal condition which causes the skin to produce too much oil. Eating a lot of fatty foods may be bad for you in other ways, but research has failed to find any connection between diet and acne. Incidentally, washing too much can make the condition worse. It’s best just to wash gently twice a day and don’t rub the skin too hard.

Doctors have several ideas about what leads to arthritis including bacterial or viral infections and jobs which involve an overuse of your joints. Some types of arthritis can even affect children. However, no types are caused by cracking your finger joists.

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'All in the same boat'

"Solo artists in general approach life in a solitary manner - deliberately choosing to go it alone. "They can find themselves in a situation where everyone around them are paid employees - the PR guru, their manger - all interested in them from a financial point of view and not in their personal needs - it's hard for the artist to know who to trust. "They travel a lot, are away from friends and family for long periods of time and only seen for their public image, not their real self - which can make them feel inferior, isolated and invalidated. "Even for the general population, psychology research has found that people with support have increased lifespan - and those in a band may benefit even more from this - they are all in the same boat. "It is easier to know who to trust - other members can stop an individual spiralling into self-destruction and pull them back into the group - both because of concern for the band mate, but also because they are all in it together."

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Cystic fibrosis woman died

She married her fiance David Wederell in September last year, but by February 2012 a malignant mass was found in her lungs."The shock immediately turned to anger in so far as all the risks were explained in the hour before her transplant and not once was the fact smoker's lungs would be used mentioned," said Mr Grannell. "She was dying a death that was meant for someone else. «He has set up a Facebook group, Jennifer's Choice, to encourage non-smokers to sign up to the organ donor register. The Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Foundation Trust said: "It is very rare for patients to specify that they do not wish to be considered for clinically healthy lungs from smokers. "This is because the risks are much higher if patients decline donor lungs from a former smoker, and decide to wait for another set of organs, which are both a match for them and from a non-smoker, to become available. "However, we recognize that Jennifer should have been given the opportunity to make this choice." We have apologized sincerely for this oversight. "Regrettably, the number of lungs available for transplantation would fall by 40% if there was a policy of refusing those which have come from a smoker; waiting lists would increase and many more patients would die without a transplant. "Prof Stephen Spiro, honorary medical adviser at the British Lung Foundation said: "It's very difficult to say why the cancer developed. «It is seriously possible that the cancer may have started in the lung before transplantation, but it was so small there was no chance of spotting it. "Recipients of transplants are immunosuppressed, to stop the body rejecting the organ - this may have encouraged the cancer to grow. But is no one really knows- these are just theories."

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