If all the tendon twisting, bone bending and muscle manipulating involved in yoga is any indication, yoga, as it turns out, can kill you. Whether it's back and neck trauma, blood clots, brain damage or even a stroke, yoga sent more than twice the number of people to the ER from 2001 to 2002. We're playing it safe and sticking to an all-Savasana (a.k.a. Lie-Down-and-Nap pose) practice for now.
Pouring water through your snout seems like a smart remedy for stuffy sinuses. People have been doing it for centuries. "What could possibly go wrong?" you ask. A lot. Like a deadly brain infection. Two neti pot users in Louisiana died last year after flushing their noses with tap water that contained a deadly brain-eating amoeba. So, yeah, please do boil your water or only use bottled or filtered water when you neti your nose.
If you're looking for a sneaky way to off someone, start collecting rice pudding recipes. A "Consumer Reports" investigation tested hundreds of different brands of rice and discovered measurable amounts of arsenic in every variety. Those who ate rice had arsenic levels 44 percent higher than those who don't. The real shocker? Brown rice had significantly higher levels of the toxin than white rice. Quinoa, anyone?
Oh, you think you're soooo smart choosing blackened and grilled over crispy and fried? Guess what? Those char marks on your grilled chicken have been linked to heterocyclic amines (HCAs), a known carcinogen that forms when meat is cooked at high temperatures. Instead of ditching the summer BBQs, minimize your HCA intake by removing the skin on grilled chicken or cooking ribs, chicken, or beef low and slow (low-temperature, slow-cooking), the way real barbecue is made.
Before you pop in your daily dose of "healthy pills," get this: vitamins A and E have been linked to increased mortality, including cancer and heart failure. These vitamins contain high levels of antioxidants, which may actually weaken our immune system.
Unhealthy things that can't actually kill you: loaded chili cheese fries, whiskey and ginger on the rocks, a 72-hour Netflix binge.
Unhealthy things that can actually kill you: shark baiting, crystal meth, sawed-off shotguns, vodka (for breakfast, lunch, and dinner).
These are things we pretty much know intuitively, and we also know what's good for us. Right? Wrong. Brace yourselves for a slap in the face -- these five so-called healthy activities can be very, very bad for you. (It shocked the living greens out of us, too.)
