Busted: five myths about the human body, from larger private parts in men with big feet to only using 10 per cent of your brain

Many misconceptions and inaccuracies regarding the human body exist, such as the idea that a flatlining heart can be restarted again with a defibrillator

That eating carrots can help you see in the dark and that your appendix serves no purpose are two other medical fallacies that have been accepted as fact

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There have been many misconceptions about the human body that have been passed down through the years, such as that eating carrots can improve your eyesight. Various authors have methodically dispelled these myths. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 4:15am, 29 Mar 2021Updated: 4:24am, 29 Mar 2021

Of all the myths propagated about the properties of the human body, those about our brains are the ones most in need of being dispelled, says British children’s book author Paul Mason, whose most recent title is Hair-raising Human Body Facts.,

“I still hear people saying, ‘You only use 10 per cent of your brain, you know?’” says Mason. The 2014 Hollywood film Lucy starring Scarlett Johansson is among media productions to have touted this false idea.

“It’s complete nonsense, just as the idea that having a big brain makes you more intelligent: Albert Einstein’s brain was completely average-sized,” he adds.

Mason, who also wrote You Can Fill a Swimming Pool with Your Spit: The Fact or Fiction Behind Human Bodies, is a swimming coach too. The inspiration for his Body Bits series, he says, comes from a habit of using random body facts to distract swimmers when they’re training hard.

“I might tell them that they can’t really be out of breath: the airways in their lungs are so long that they’d stretch halfway across North America. And the smallest kids always like to hear that they have the exact same number of muscles as Adam Peaty, the world 100m breaststroke champion,” he says.