Under the Tree: Medical Myths

Bending and breaking under holiday stress? Relax! The British Medical Journal has bah-humbugged six holiday health myths, the New York Times reports:

• Night eating makes you fat: Calories are calories. When you eat doesn't matter; it's what you eat.
• Poinsettias are perilous: Reported cases of human poinsettia consumption: 22,793. Significant poisoning cases: 0.

• Sugar makes kids hyper: The link is all in parents' minds.
• Suicides spike: People more often take their own lives in warm weather.
• Put on a hat to stay warm: Heat doesn't escape through the head any more than it escapes through other exposed body parts.
• The hair of the dog cures a hangover: The only effective measure is a preventive one—abstention.

(More Santa Claus stories.)