40 Worst Pieces of Health Advice You Should Never Follow

Pubic hair actually serves a purpose—it's designed to be protective of your vagina, and also helps prevent irritation from friction during sex. Whether you do it or not, shaving down there is ultimately a personal preference. You absolutely don't have to groom down there if you don't want to.

Wrong. An elimination diet is just what it sounds like: It involves eliminating certain foods from your diet. But it's designed to help figure out if you have any food intolerances or allergies—not to lose weight.

This is a huge myth, and one that comes with some potentially serious consequences. The pull-out method isn't foolproof. In fact, about 4 percent of couples get pregnant if the male partner withdraws before ejaculating, according to research published in the journal Contraception.

People have argued this for years, but research actually suggests the opposite is true. The reason dieting is so much more effective than exercise is because it takes a ton of activity to create a 500 to 700 daily calorie deficit you'd need to lose a pound in a week through working out. That doesn't mean exercise isn't important—it is. But it's crucial to eat well when weight loss is your goal.

Nope, you actually don't need to worry so much about taking this advice. Some studies suggest the opposite, that eating a snack before bed can help you feel more satiated and eat less overall. But there's really no convincing data to prove that eating just before bed is a significant factor in weight gain—or weight loss for that matter. Follow your hunger cues and eat when you need fuel.

Yes, having a family member with Alzheimer's disease may increase your risk of developing it yourself down the road. But lifestyle factors also play a big role. Diet, exercise, and sleep can help you slow or even stave off the brain degeneration associated with Alzheimer’s—and those are factors you actually have control over.

The issue with this is the caffeine, and experts agree that some caffeine (coffee included) is totally fine when you're pregnant. The general scientific consensus is that consuming more than about 300 milligrams of caffeine daily may increase your risks of pregnancy loss and having a baby with a low birth weight, per the World Health Organization.

That's why the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends that pregnant women stick to less than 200 milligrams of caffeine a day, or about eight ounces of coffee. If you switch to decaf, you can have even more.

Sure, it's not ideal, but it doesn't necessarily mean that something is seriously wrong with your health. Instead, it could mean something as simple as your ovulation pattern is a little off or that your body is adjusting to new birth control. If it persists, though, talk to your doctor.

Certain drinks *might* help replace electrolytes—sodium, potassium, phosphorus, chloride, calcium, and magnesium—and generally help regulate fluid levels in the body. But most hangovers aren't linked to an electrolyte imbalance. So, while sports drinks might help you rehydrate, they're unlikely to magically cure your hangover.

Your vagina is like a self-cleaning oven. It has a delicate microbiome that works hard to keep itself healthy. Douching messes with this and can actually raise your risk of developing certain infections. So, take a pass.

Actually, the opposite is true. Salt water, like you'd find at a beach or bay, isn't sterile and can contain harmful bacteria—including flesh-eating bacteria. That can open you up to a serious infection.

You don't have to wake your gyno up in the middle of the night for clots in your period blood. It's completely normal. Typically, anti-coagulants released by your body when you have your period fend off period blood clots. But sometimes—especially if you have a heavy flow—not all of your uterine tissue is able to be broken down. That can lead to clots forming and being released during your period. While not all women experience clots, it's still normal to have them.

People claim that drinking a diluted solution of apple cider vinegar will change your body’s pH levels to create an environment where bacteria and viruses can't live. This isn't proven.

The effects of ACV have been studied on bacteria that's outside the body, but it's unknown how it works on bacteria inside the body. Plus, most colds are caused by viruses—not bacteria—which means it's not going to do much anyway.

Prenatal vitamins are there to fill in any nutritional gaps and make sure there is an abundance of all the vital nutrients your baby needs to grow. Ideally you should start taking them as soon as you start trying to conceive, since your baby will need those extra nutrients from the moment of conception. Many doctors also recommend that breastfeeding moms also take prenatal vitamins to help fill nutritional gaps.

Yes, the flu vaccine is more effective at preventing the flu in some years than others. But getting the flu shot can also lower your risk of developing serious complications of the flu, and help ensure that you'll have a milder course of the illness if you do happen to catch it. So, get your flu shot.

Sure, you're probably not going to feel amazing 24/7 on your period, but feeling wiped all the time could be a sign that something is off. If your periods tend to be heavy or last for more than seven days, you could develop iron deficiency anemia, a condition that happens when you have too little iron in your body. Anemia can torpedo your energy, leave you feeling weak, and cause shortness of breath, according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. If this describes you when Flo comes to town, call your doctor.

People claim that body wraps can help you drop pounds fast, but it's not the kind of weight loss you're after. Body wraps could make you look thinner and may even cause you to lose a few pounds, but it will all be due to losing water weight—and therefore will be temporary.

Turmeric is anti-inflammatory and works as an antioxidant. But while many people claim it can sharpen your mind and stave off Alzheimer's disease, there isn't really scientific evidence to back that up.

When you shower, soap and water runs down your legs and onto your feet, making it seem like it's got the area covered. But you don't get a pass on not washing your feet in the shower—they accumulate a lot of dirt and could use a serious scrub.

Not only is there no medical reason to do this, most women end up switching birth control over time due to side effects or lifestyle changes, says WH advisor Sheeva Talebian, MD, a reproductive endocrinologist at CCRM NY. And that's totally fine—find a BC that works for you at any given stage of life.

Unfortunately, that's not the case. There are several strains of the flu that circulate on any given year and, even if you caught one strain of the flu, it doesn't mean you're not able to catch another strain.

Here's the deal: Some women will stop getting their period on the pill because the lining of their uterus is thin from the hormones in their oral contraceptives, says Kim Langdon, MD, an ob-gyn and writer at Parenting Pod. If the uterine lining doesn't thicken due to hormonal fluctuation, it doesn't need to shed each month like it does during a regular period. “This is perfectly safe and will change back to normal once they go off the pill,” Dr. Langdon says.

Please ignore this fake news. A jade egg is an egg-shaped weight that you insert and hold inside your vagina. The egg has been said to strengthen your pelvic floor, by requiring those muscles to clench to keep it in place. But because the eggs are made of stone, they're porous and can absorb bacteria—bacteria that you can't fully remove during cleanings. It can also be hard to remove them because they're slippery. All in all, doctors recommend that you take a pass.

Nope. There's no evidence of long-term issues from continuing to use the birth control pill. In fact, as soon as a healthy woman stops taking the pill, her body goes back to its pre-pill state in about three months. So, if you used to have bad PMS or heavy periods, you'll be stuck dealing with them again.

Alkaline water is water that falls around 8 or 9 on the pH scale, about 1 to 2 levels above regular water's neutral pH (7). Fans say that alkaline water prevents your body's pH from becoming too acidic, by counterbalancing anything that would bring down your pH. But there's really no conclusive evidence that alkaline water is any better than plain old water.

Your belly button can trap all kinds of gunk, including dead skin cells that naturally shed daily, debris, sweat, oil secretions, and small clothing fibers. But bacteria and yeast can grow out of control in there and, worst case scenario, you could end up with a bacterial or yeast infection. So, clean your belly button regularly with gentle soap and water.

The concept behind this makes sense: Eating local honey exposes you to the local pollens (that you're allergic to) and can actually make you immune to them. Unfortunately, this is an urban myth. Local honey does contain pollen, but it's not the same as the airborne pollens that cause seasonal allergies (trees, grasses, and weeds, which are dispersed through the air). There's also no scientific evidence to back this up.

We've allll heard that your period stops when you, say, go swimming. While that would be awesome, it's just not the case. “It doesn’t matter if you’re in water or on the top of a mountain or in a ditch, your period still comes,” says Michele Haughton, MD, an ob/gyn at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian.

This is *not* an excuse to avoid the Pill if it's a birth-control method that makes sense for you. While some women say they've gained weight on the pill, a review of more than 40 studies showed no specific evidence that birth control pills cause weight gain. That said, some women gain a little water weight while taking pills that contain estrogen, as the hormone can cause fluid retention, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). But it won't stick around. If that's the case for you, you'll likely just pee it out when you take the placebo pills.

Douching, i.e. washing or cleaning out the inside of your vagina with water or other fluids, won't help prevent pregnancy. But it will do other icky things that you definitely don't want, like throw off the balance of bacteria that keeps your vagina healthy, increasing your risk of developing an infection down there.