7 ms·

One interesting thing I observed by being trilingual is that different countries’ medical systems will give different and sometimes contradictory instructions w

One interesting thing I observed by being trilingual is that different countries’ medical systems will give different and sometimes contradictory instructions when you Google for some medical information. One of this is sex during menstruation. I was instructed that it was not a problem but in Japan they specifically instruct that it is discouraged because there might be a link with Endometriosis. If you try to Google if sex in menstruation can lead to infertility you are going to find little information in English, but you are going to find many hits in Japanese.

pcthrowaway 1y ago
Do you mind sharing a promising article in Japanese which can be translated?
- worldsayshi 1y ago
  This makes me wonder how to search for content in another language? I mean most sites are almost trivially translatable by now.
  - thaumasiotes 1y ago
    You can easily autotranslate your question into whatever language you'd like to search, go to a search engine for that language, and see what you get. If I want to do a search for Chinese content, I go to baidu, enter a query that makes sense to me, and look for a suggested query that looks right. Doing this is much less useful than you might think. You'll still lack the ability to interpret the search results, or the pages you click through to. It's not an issue of translating the content. You have no idea what kind of pages you've turned up, what the ones you want should look like, or how information is laid out in the foreign websites. Your habits from the English-speaking internet won't apply.
  - OJFord 1y ago
    You just search in the language you're looking for? (And if you have a country filter/hint set on your search engine of choice, you disable or change it appropriately.)
- jwrallie 1y ago
  I just took the first link from a Google search that looked not to be advertisement (edit: but still kinda is) https://emishia-clinic.jp/low-dose-pill/on-my-period-sex/ https://emishia-clinic.jp/low-dose-pill/on-my-period-sex/
317070 1y ago
There are so many more of these. A common one is everything to do with babies. * In the UK you should not start solids before 6 months, in France you can start at 3, and should at 4. * Baby bed room temperature: in the UK 16 degrees Celsius, France 19 degrees, in the nordics you should have them sleep outside while I've been told that in Hungary 25 degrees is considered optimal. Don't underestimate how much of health science is embedded folklore knowledge by people who thought they managed to extract signal from noise with a lot of confounders, especially if the patient is not sick or cannot express their subjective experience.
- kqr 1y ago
  My favourites are - How much alcohol can a pregnant person drink? (Not too much, obviously, but is a glass of wine a couple of different days in the third trimester okay? Probably, but it varies a lot deoending on which country you're in.) - When can children start eating green leaves? (I don't know, but even different counties in Sweden have different guidelines on that one.) - Should infants sleep on their tummy or back? (Definitely on their back. There is no argument there. But when I was an infant -- which is not that long ago, parents were advised otherwise.)
  - maccard 1y ago
    > But when I was an infant -- which is not that long ago, parents were advised otherwise Medicine is wild. Lots of things that were taken as gospel even 15 years ago have been completely flipped on their head. The NHS massively changed their advice last year on asthma treatment and it’s basically the opposite of what they said before. We’ve seen the same with musculoskeletal injuries, nerve injuries and just general recovery.
    - whatevermom 1y ago
      Sorry, but what was the change? Adding corticoid inhalers when treating an asthma episode? Curious since I have asthma and didn’t hear about this change yet.
abxyz 1y ago
Another example is Ureaplasma Parvum which is treated as a serious STD in parts of the world but almost never acknowledged as an STD in the U.S. and therefore almost impossible to get tested for and treated for in the U.S. There’s an entire reddit about it: https://www.reddit.com/r/Ureaplasma/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Ureaplasma/ Full background: https://www.reddit.com/r/Ureaplasma/comments/qavqf1/the_ureaplasma_bible_everything_you_need_to_know/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Ureaplasma/comments/qavqf1/the_urea...
andrelaszlo 1y ago
An Argentinian friend of mine said you get cancer from drinking beverages that are too hot. He sent the Wikipedia page to prove it but only the Spanish version of the page had this information. Is this another example of culturally specific health "facts" or have I just missed something?
- ifwinterco 1y ago
  I think this is true but it's much more of an issue in LatAm countries where they drink mate through metal straws. In european/North American countries where people normally drink out of ceramic mugs, people generally end up drinking hot drinks at a lower temperature
  - nradov 1y ago
    Huh? How does the straw matter and what is the mechanism of action here? Citation needed.
    - ifwinterco 1y ago
      It's oesophageal cancer specifically, and I think drinking through a metal straw instead of sipping causes higher temperature liquid to be in contact with the throat. Haven't actually read through the wiki references, but seems like it's an 'association' rather than anything definitive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yerba_mate#Cancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yerba_mate#Cancer
- viciousvoxel 1y ago
  There's been conflicting information about this over the years. The latest research suggests that it may increase cancer risk when combined with other behaviors that themselves increase risk, but it probably has little to no effect on its own. https://www.mskcc.org/news/burning-issue-truth-about-hot-drinks-and-esophageal-cancer-risk https://www.mskcc.org/news/burning-issue-truth-about-hot-dri...
- SwtCyber 1y ago
  The "hot drinks cause cancer" thing is surprisingly legit
SwtCyber 1y ago
Makes you realize how much of what we think is "settled science" is often just what gets repeated in a given language or culture
decimalenough 1y ago
Yup, pregnancy/childbirth/rearing is particularly rife with these. Western sources suggest that eating sushi while pregnant is little short of stabbing yourself in the abdomen with a sharp knife, Japanese sources explicitly recommend sushi as a light and healthy meal. In the US giving any form of peanuts to babies is attempted murder, in Israel peanut puffs (Bamba) are among the first foods offered.
- hnthrowaway121 1y ago
  > In the US giving any form of peanuts to babies is attempted murder, in Israel peanut puffs (Bamba) are among the first foods offered. This is not the case, peanut puffs are a common early solid food in the US. Before that there are allergen mixes you can add to milk/formula. All the recommendations I saw when my kid was born said early exposure to allergens is good to reduce chances of allergic reactions.
- edmundsauto 1y ago
  Many of these are due to cultural contexts. For example, I would trust sushi from 7-11 in Japan over most grocery store sushi in the US. > Western sources suggest that eating sushi while pregnant is little short of stabbing yourself in the abdomen with a sharp knife, Japanese sources explicitly recommend sushi as a light and healthy meal

pcthrowaway 1y ago

Do you mind sharing a promising article in Japanese which can be translated?

worldsayshi 1y ago
This makes me wonder how to search for content in another language? I mean most sites are almost trivially translatable by now.
- thaumasiotes 1y ago
  You can easily autotranslate your question into whatever language you'd like to search, go to a search engine for that language, and see what you get. If I want to do a search for Chinese content, I go to baidu, enter a query that makes sense to me, and look for a suggested query that looks right. Doing this is much less useful than you might think. You'll still lack the ability to interpret the search results, or the pages you click through to. It's not an issue of translating the content. You have no idea what kind of pages you've turned up, what the ones you want should look like, or how information is laid out in the foreign websites. Your habits from the English-speaking internet won't apply.
- OJFord 1y ago
  You just search in the language you're looking for? (And if you have a country filter/hint set on your search engine of choice, you disable or change it appropriately.)
jwrallie 1y ago
I just took the first link from a Google search that looked not to be advertisement (edit: but still kinda is) https://emishia-clinic.jp/low-dose-pill/on-my-period-sex/ https://emishia-clinic.jp/low-dose-pill/on-my-period-sex/

317070 1y ago

There are so many more of these. A common one is everything to do with babies. * In the UK you should not start solids before 6 months, in France you can start at 3, and should at 4. * Baby bed room temperature: in the UK 16 degrees Celsius, France 19 degrees, in the nordics you should have them sleep outside while I've been told that in Hungary 25 degrees is considered optimal. Don't underestimate how much of health science is embedded folklore knowledge by people who thought they managed to extract signal from noise with a lot of confounders, especially if the patient is not sick or cannot express their subjective experience.

kqr 1y ago
My favourites are - How much alcohol can a pregnant person drink? (Not too much, obviously, but is a glass of wine a couple of different days in the third trimester okay? Probably, but it varies a lot deoending on which country you're in.) - When can children start eating green leaves? (I don't know, but even different counties in Sweden have different guidelines on that one.) - Should infants sleep on their tummy or back? (Definitely on their back. There is no argument there. But when I was an infant -- which is not that long ago, parents were advised otherwise.)
- maccard 1y ago
  > But when I was an infant -- which is not that long ago, parents were advised otherwise Medicine is wild. Lots of things that were taken as gospel even 15 years ago have been completely flipped on their head. The NHS massively changed their advice last year on asthma treatment and it’s basically the opposite of what they said before. We’ve seen the same with musculoskeletal injuries, nerve injuries and just general recovery.
  - whatevermom 1y ago
    Sorry, but what was the change? Adding corticoid inhalers when treating an asthma episode? Curious since I have asthma and didn’t hear about this change yet.

abxyz 1y ago

Another example is Ureaplasma Parvum which is treated as a serious STD in parts of the world but almost never acknowledged as an STD in the U.S. and therefore almost impossible to get tested for and treated for in the U.S. There’s an entire reddit about it: https://www.reddit.com/r/Ureaplasma/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Ureaplasma/ Full background: https://www.reddit.com/r/Ureaplasma/comments/qavqf1/the_ureaplasma_bible_everything_you_need_to_know/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Ureaplasma/comments/qavqf1/the_urea...

andrelaszlo 1y ago

An Argentinian friend of mine said you get cancer from drinking beverages that are too hot. He sent the Wikipedia page to prove it but only the Spanish version of the page had this information. Is this another example of culturally specific health "facts" or have I just missed something?

ifwinterco 1y ago
I think this is true but it's much more of an issue in LatAm countries where they drink mate through metal straws. In european/North American countries where people normally drink out of ceramic mugs, people generally end up drinking hot drinks at a lower temperature
- nradov 1y ago
  Huh? How does the straw matter and what is the mechanism of action here? Citation needed.
  - ifwinterco 1y ago
    It's oesophageal cancer specifically, and I think drinking through a metal straw instead of sipping causes higher temperature liquid to be in contact with the throat. Haven't actually read through the wiki references, but seems like it's an 'association' rather than anything definitive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yerba_mate#Cancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yerba_mate#Cancer
viciousvoxel 1y ago
There's been conflicting information about this over the years. The latest research suggests that it may increase cancer risk when combined with other behaviors that themselves increase risk, but it probably has little to no effect on its own. https://www.mskcc.org/news/burning-issue-truth-about-hot-drinks-and-esophageal-cancer-risk https://www.mskcc.org/news/burning-issue-truth-about-hot-dri...
SwtCyber 1y ago
The "hot drinks cause cancer" thing is surprisingly legit

SwtCyber 1y ago

Makes you realize how much of what we think is "settled science" is often just what gets repeated in a given language or culture

decimalenough 1y ago

Yup, pregnancy/childbirth/rearing is particularly rife with these. Western sources suggest that eating sushi while pregnant is little short of stabbing yourself in the abdomen with a sharp knife, Japanese sources explicitly recommend sushi as a light and healthy meal. In the US giving any form of peanuts to babies is attempted murder, in Israel peanut puffs (Bamba) are among the first foods offered.

hnthrowaway121 1y ago
> In the US giving any form of peanuts to babies is attempted murder, in Israel peanut puffs (Bamba) are among the first foods offered. This is not the case, peanut puffs are a common early solid food in the US. Before that there are allergen mixes you can add to milk/formula. All the recommendations I saw when my kid was born said early exposure to allergens is good to reduce chances of allergic reactions.
edmundsauto 1y ago
Many of these are due to cultural contexts. For example, I would trust sushi from 7-11 in Japan over most grocery store sushi in the US. > Western sources suggest that eating sushi while pregnant is little short of stabbing yourself in the abdomen with a sharp knife, Japanese sources explicitly recommend sushi as a light and healthy meal