Cold water causes stomach cancer!

That's right. According to a local OBGyn, she told me sister-in-law that drinking cold water causes cancer and she advocates drinking tea, coffee, or warm water.

Of course, the truthseeker that I am, I perused the great tomes of antiquity and dedicated hours of research into the subject. Well, not actually. I just fired up Google after I wrote the first paragraph and after 30 seconds I can confidently say that the OBGyn is an idiot and I afraid for all the people who goes to her for consult.

I googled "cold water stomach cancer." Lo! and behold Snopes.com showed up as a potential source that would help shine a light into the murky depths of stupidity some people show.

So from Snopes.com:

"Claim: Drinking cold water after meals will lead to cancer.

Status: False.

...Over the years, decades, and even centuries, a variety of things have been pointed to as causing cancer. Once, when it was noted that there had been an increase in the consumption of tomatoes and an increase in the number of cancer patients, the erroneous conclusion was drawn from this correlation that tomatoes in some fashion caused or induced cancer...

If that now seems laughable, consider that to this day cancer continues to attract a number of misconceptions, and not just about its potential causes. In 2005 the American Cancer Society conducted a telephone survey of 957 adult Americans who had never had cancer, asking each of them about five common fallacies about the disease. Of the participants, nearly 41 percent believed surgeries to remove cancer actually caused the disease to spread, and another 13 percent weren't sure whether that was true or not. 27 percent of those surveyed believed the medical industry was withholding from the public a cure for cancer just to increase profits, and another 14 percent weren't sure but thought they might be. 19 percent believed pain medications were ineffective against cancer pain (with a further 13 percent unsure), and 7 percent thought the disease was an illness that could not be effectively treated. Finally, 5 percent of those taking part in the survey believed that all that was needed to beat the Big C was a positive attitude.

...the Internet the advice to "drink water at room temperature if possible, as ice-cold water can harm the delicate lining of your stomach." If the lining of the human stomach were that delicate, our tummies would not long survive their being constantly bathed in highly caustic digestive acids."

By no means is Snopes.com THE authority when it comes to medical science. I do, however, trust some of the web authors (Barbara and David P. Mikkelson) of this site when it comes to their desire to find and expose the truth.

So drinking cold water has very much the same status as cellular phones causing explosions in gas stations. Both are false.

As to the OBGyn who seems to think she's the authority when it comes to cold water and cancer, I sure won't advice anybody I know to see her for consult. Who knows what other crazy things she has up her sleeve, like the earth is flat and that it was made in 4 days or that when somebody dies it's actually some higher being's will. A lot of people actually buy into the latter. If you ask me, this is just some excuse for some doctors not to get sued. "I pray to (insert diety here) all the time. Your (relative, love one, friend) died because (diety) willed it. (Diety) definitely won't let anyone die while I operate on him, will He/She?"

Another story about another OBGyn here is that this physician did an ultrasound and diagnosed polycystic kidney disease and gave her medication. The patient bled often and the OBGyn just said, "That's just a side effect of the drug. It's normal." The patient had the right mind to get a second opinion in St. Luke's and she was diagnosed with adenomyosis of which the medication the previous OBGyn gave made things worse.

Perhaps these things is just one the reasons why I'm not so hellbent in pursuing my medical career. I honestly can't deal with people who are supposed to intelligent and yet accept the world being made in 3 to 4 days as fact and that evolution is a name of a car.

Gaaah!