The Olympics are now over and its time we talk about the rather dangerous woo on display.
Athletes, like all humans, can be very superstitious. Pretty much every Olympics there is some “health” fad that American athletes swear by. This year it was cupping.
Cupping is an “ancient’ practice where you basically use suction to give yourself rather large hickeys all over your body. The premise is that suction draws out – toxins of some sort from your body. It’s pseudo-non-science because it seems plausible. You are – after all – creating suction. But it is wooey non-science regardless.
What’s the harm? Oh – let me show you – it’s kind of gross though, so I’m only giving you the link. http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2016/07/01/whats-the-harm-cupping-edition/
Basically – cupping breaks blood vessels in your skin and damages your skin. I have no idea why anyone would think this feels good or would be good for them. It’s broken blood vessels! Do that enough often enough and the damage caused can be compounded and made permanent.
Depending on how the cupping is done, you can also get very serious burns on your skin. Which is also skin damage and again, I can’t imagine why anyone would do this to their body intentionally. If you didn’t click though – the article I linked to has pictures of a guy with burnt holes in his back that go all the way through the skin.
The worse part about this is that there is zero medical benefit from this at all. ZERO! So even if you don’t get burned or damage your skin, you are still wasting time and money on a treatment that is basically a placebo.
The price of rejecting reality is indeed high.
Athletes, like all humans, can be very superstitious. Pretty much every Olympics there is some “health” fad that American athletes swear by. This year it was cupping.
Cupping is an “ancient’ practice where you basically use suction to give yourself rather large hickeys all over your body. The premise is that suction draws out – toxins of some sort from your body. It’s pseudo-non-science because it seems plausible. You are – after all – creating suction. But it is wooey non-science regardless.
What’s the harm? Oh – let me show you – it’s kind of gross though, so I’m only giving you the link. http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2016/07/01/whats-the-harm-cupping-edition/
Basically – cupping breaks blood vessels in your skin and damages your skin. I have no idea why anyone would think this feels good or would be good for them. It’s broken blood vessels! Do that enough often enough and the damage caused can be compounded and made permanent.
Depending on how the cupping is done, you can also get very serious burns on your skin. Which is also skin damage and again, I can’t imagine why anyone would do this to their body intentionally. If you didn’t click though – the article I linked to has pictures of a guy with burnt holes in his back that go all the way through the skin.
The worse part about this is that there is zero medical benefit from this at all. ZERO! So even if you don’t get burned or damage your skin, you are still wasting time and money on a treatment that is basically a placebo.
The price of rejecting reality is indeed high.
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