20 Everyday Things That Are Dangerous To Your Health

These days it seems like just about anything is bad for your health. Whether its anti-vaxxers ranting about how life-saving medicine is supposed to give you autism or those touting anti-gluten sentiments raving about the dangers of a piece of bread, there is always something out there that someone thinks will kill you. Oddly enough, despite all of the garbage that people want to mislead others with, there are a great many things that you would never think could cause damage to your well-being.

Not So Cool Now

Facial piercings may be en vogue to a certain age group, but they can lead to long-term damaging effects. Scientists have found that getting piercings in your face can disrupt the facial trigeminal nerve, which connects facial sensations to the central nervous system. A single bad piercing can cause dizziness, loss of balance, and eye misalignment.

Dangerously Skinny

Although they are fashion forward, skinny jeans can be damaging to the nerves. When worn too tightly you can compress your lateral femoral cutaneous nerve and get meralgia paraesthetica, a condition with symptoms that include numbness, stinging pain, heat sensitivity, and atrophied tissue.

Printing Death

Laser printing, while efficient, can be really bad for you lungs. About 40% of laser printers emit clouds of toner, dense enough and big enough to cause lung damage on par with smoking cigarettes.

Ties of Terror

Men have been wearing neck ties for centuries, but even today you need to be careful with how tightly they are worn. If too tight, intraocular pressure is increased and can lead to glaucoma.

Scrub-A-Dub-Dub

While it is nice to have that wonderful clean feeling, daily showering can actually be bad for you. Constant cleaning can slough of the skin’s horny layer and leave a person more susceptible to diseases and illnesses.

Dirty Laundry

E. Coli is a very awful kind of bacteria and one of the most common places to find it is not in tainted meat, but rather in your washing machine. Introduced on your underwear, its important to make sure your knickknacks are washed properly as most cycles don’t kill the bacteria.

Not So Miraculous

Though most people think it is the norm to lay on your back with your legs in the air during childbirth, it actually can make the experience worse. This position, supposedly created for the convenience of doctors, can make labor harder and increase the chance of tearing and is also recommended against by the World Health Organization.

Bad, Bad Brushing

It makes life a lot easier to brush your teeth right after eating instead of letting that residue just sit there and build up, right? Wrong! The acids in food soften the enamel of the teeth making them more sensitive – brushing them in this state can be incredibly destructive. If you feel the need for clean teeth, try brushing before you eat.

The Air That I Breathe

Ever heard of Sick Building Syndrome? It was first recognized back in 1970’s during the energy crises – office building air was recirculated instead of being let outside. That means that the air you’re breathing at work could contain anything from carbon monoxide to black mold.

No Pain, No Gain

Running is a great cardio workout, but long-distance running can be bad for other parts of your body. Mostly experience in men, salt from sweat combined with fabric can act like sandpaper – since nipples can’t callus, they can get rubbed raw and start to bleed. Women are usually unaffected because they wear sports bras.

Free the Girls

If you sleep in your bra, then you really should stop. Women who wear bras while they sleep experience increase salivary melatonin levels because of the pressure put on their skin – this can lead to poor sleep, sickness, and irregular periods.

Blinded By The Light

Daily life exposes us to all kinds of different lights, most of which can be harmful. Exposure to fluorescent lights especially can lead to headaches, stress, anxiety, fatigue, cardiovascular disease and even erectile dysfunction.

Life Ain’t So Sweet

Artificial sweeteners may seem like the perfect substitute for real sugar, but it actually isn’t doing the good you might think. A study of mice showed that those who were fed saccharine (sugar substitute) gained more weight than those fed with sucrose (real sugar) – so if your trying to lose a few pounds, pass on the Sweet N’ Low and the diet soda.

Tainted Goods

As delicious as chocolate is, be careful how much you eat. A great deal of the world’s cocoa beans come from Nigeria where they use leaded gasoline, and cocoa bean shells are very good at absorbing lead from the air. Children are very vulnerable to chocolate lead poisoning, which has been linked to lower school test scores.

Skip The Soap

We’re all taught from an early age that washing your hands is important for good health, but that’s not always so in public situations. One in every four soap dispensers in public restrooms are crawling with harmful bacteria.

Vitamins Of Destruction

If you feed your kids chewable vitamins, it is paramount that you make sure they chew and swallow them instead of letting them dissolve in the mouth. Vitamin C is high in ascorbic acid and can lead to teeth erosion.

Convenient Stress Maker

Amazing advances in technology allow us to have phones that give us access to nearly every digital aspect of our lives which makes life incredibly convenient. The bad news is that this instant access to your emails and text messages can cause you lots of stress that can impede your health.

Bored Heart

Dull jobs may seem easier but they can actually be detrimental to a person’s health in the long run. Science has shown that people with boring jobs have a slower heart beat, making them unprepared for physical shock and therefore more likely to have a heart attack.

Anti-Antibacterial

Antibacterial soaps are designed to kill bacteria, but science has begun to recognize that that is not all it does. Wide use of strong antibacterial soap has lead to drug-resistant strains of e. coli and pneumonia.

More Lost Than Gained

There are those that think extreme exercise can lead to a more buff, more manly appearance. While intense exercise can make your body look more masculine, a lot of men experience and shrinking and retraction of their testicles.