The old wives’ tales that are actually true: Carrots help you see, cheese causes nightmares 

We know now that eating bread crusts won’t make your hair curly and cracking your knuckles doesn’t cause arthritis — but not all ‘old wives’ tales’ are nonsense.

The phrase comes from the fact older women would pass down medical advice to younger generations long before textbooks. While many of them turned out to be bogus, we’re now discovering that some are actually true. 

Perhaps one of the most surprising old wives’ tales is that eating carrots can help you see in the dark — but it is at least partially backed by science.

Chemicals in the vegetable play a crucial role in keeping our eyes healthy, which helps maintain good vision generally.

And eating cheese just before bed has been shown to cause nightmares. It’s thought that amino acids in cheese disrupt sleep, which in turn can lead to vivid dreams. 

One of the longest standing old wives’ tales is that a dab of honey in tea can serve as a cough medicine, and for good reason. Studies show honey coats the throat and soothes mucus membranes, getting rid of a tickly throat.

Meanwhile, it’s easy to forget that the health benefits of fish were once an old wives’ tale. But a mountain of research in recent decades has linked oily fish to a lower risk of everything from heart disease to dementia.

So which old wives’ tales really are true? 

Eating cheese before bed can affect your dreams

It was long believed that having cheese an hour before you go to bed can cause nightmares. 

Chemicals in cheese can cause a person to start dreaming if they are consumed just before bed, and the type of cheese eaten can impact what type of dream they have.

Cheese, like many other dairy goods, contains the amino acid tryptophan. Previous research has found that consuming high amounts of tryptophan can significantly increase time a person spends dreaming. 

The body metabolizes tryptophan into serotonin, a neurotransmitter that regulates a person’s behavior and overall mood.

High levels of serotonin are linked to more satisfaction, overall happiness and a generally more positive outlook on life, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) says. 

Serotonin has not been directly linked to an increased frequency or vividness of dreams – but anecdotal evidence suggests that people who use drugs that boost serotonin do dream more than peers.  

Participants in a 2005 study by the British Cheese Board consumed 20grams of cheese just before bed, and two-thirds reported having a dream they could remember when they woke up.

Oddly, the type of cheese seemed to matter as well. Nigel White, who served as secretary of the board when the research was performed, told NPR that different reactions depended on what cheese they had.

He said that people who ate blue cheese were more likely to have vivid dreams. Red Leicester cheese, produced in Leicestershire in England’s Midlands, caused people to experience nostalgic dreams.

Cheddar cheese, which is most popular in America, lead to eaters having dreams featuring prominent figures and celebrities. Oddly, Cheshire cheese, from a northwestern English province, lead to no dreams at all.

Mr White’s team was not able to specify why certain cheeses caused these specific reactions, but tied the overall findings towards tryptophan.

Honey IS a natural cough medicine

Sweet honey just before bed can reduce a cough, mothers have long believed while caring for an ill child. 

Just a few drops of honey in boiling water or tea can relieve a person’s symptoms of cough, according to multiple studies.

A 2002 paper by the University of Illinois found that the sweet substance could reduce mucus secretion and increased the release of cytokines – which are cells discharged by the immune system to fight off threats.

These cytokines signal the body’s immune response and help fight off virus’s, bacteria and other germs that can cause significant harm.

While honey can help fight illness in all people, the affect is especially pronounced among children. 

In 2007 researchers at Penn State University found that kids two through five given a 2.5milimeter (mL) dose of honey had their symptoms improve more than those of children who did not use any treatment.

Researchers in Israel in 2012 gave 10grams of eucalyptus, citrus or Labiatae honey to children suffering from a cough and compared their symptoms to those who received a placebo.

The children who received honey reported better sleep quality and improved symptoms when compared to the other groups. Each type of honey was effective. 

Mixing honey with milk can provide benefits of its own as well. An Italian research team in 2014 mixed wildflower honey with with milk and used it to treat children with a nonspecific acute cough.

Their symptoms and reaction to the treatment were then compared to a placebo group and to other children treated with popular over-the-counter cough medicine.

Among the 134 children included in the study, 80 per cent who were treated with honey had a decrease in symptoms, compared to 87 per cent in the cough medicine group.

Only half of the children in the placebo saw their symptoms lessen, signaling the effectiveness of the honey.

But carrots can boost your eye health

Eating carrots each day can provide a boost to your sight and even help you see in the dark, some have long believed.

Carrots providing a boost to a person’s eyesight was initially believed to be a myth – until scientists came around and proved it to be true years later.

In World War II, English soldiers were using newly developed radar technology to detect and shoot down German planes. 

Not wanting to reveal their secret, the British Air Ministry started to put out false information that carrots would help a person see in the dark, and that the carrot-filled diets of their soldiers was giving them a tactical advantage.

Scientists would later confirm that a diet loaded with a root vegetables can be beneficial to a person’s vision and eye health – though they may still not develop cat-like night-vision.

They are loaded with beta-carotene, the pigment that gives them their distinctive orange coloring

When a person eats foods high in the substance, which also includes spinach, lettuce, tomatoes and broccoli, among others – their body converts it into vitamin A.

The vitamin is crucial for keeping a person’s cornea clear – the transparent filter in-front of the eye that keeps out dirt and dust.

It is also a component of rhodopsin, as photopigment in a person’s eye-rods that helps them see in low-light conditions.

Vitamin A deficiency can also lead to eye dryness, cataracts, clouding of the cornea,  and macular degeneration, where the center of a person’s vision is blurred – each of which can impair vision or lead to blindness.

A long labor can signal it’s a boy 

Having a boy means a longer, tougher, delivery day for pregnant mothers, some have long said.

A pregnant woman who is giving birth to a boy will likely have a longer period of labor than if they were having a girl, studies show.

While there is no significant difference between the birth weight of baby boys and girls, boys are often born with bigger heads, which makes delivery more difficult. 

In 2017,  Persian researchers tracked time between the start of labor and dilation, and then the time it took for women to reach each stage of dilation.

There are generally considered to be three stages of labor. First, early labor, when a woman’s water first breaks and her cervix dilates three to six centimeters (cm). 

It is followed by the active phase – the point where where a woman’s contractions begin to occur more often and last longer. It is at this point where a woman is advised to seek medical care at a hospital. The cervix reaches up to 7cm. 

The final stage is the transition phase, where the woman will proceed to give birth, and fully dilates from 8cm to 10cm.

The study gathered data from 1,527 women – 797 of which were giving birth to a male. Researchers timed the duration between each stages of pregnancy.

In total, it took 38 per cent longer for women giving birth to boys to go from the active phase until full dilation – when is the point where the pregnancy stage changes to the transition phase.

It also took 21 per cent longer for their cervix to dilate from 4cm to 6cm, 12.5 per cent longer to go from 6cm to 8cm and 17 per cent more time to go from 8cm to 10cm.

Women who gave birth to boys were not more likely to suffer complications or other negative health .

A 2003 study performed by the National Maternity Hospital in Dublin had similar findings, but also noted an increased need for painkillers among women who birthed boys.

Oily fish is a wonder drug for the brain and heart

Fish food can give you a brain booster. 

Eating a lot of fish and fish-oil products can do wonders for a person’s brain health and memory, a multitude of studies finds.

Seafood like salmon and tuna are rich with omega-3 fatty acids. Studies have linked these substances with reductions to cognitive decline in older people, better memory and mental heath.

A 2021 study by Boston Medical Center found that two of the fatty acids docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) improved cognitive function in elderly adults with coronary artery disease.

People who suffer from the condition are already at a severely increased risk of suffering cognitive issues. The study found that those whose blood streams had higher levels of the acids were less likely to suffer decline.

The benefits of the fatty acids begin well before a person’s elderly years – and the benefits can be gained even in the womb.

A Norwegian study from 2003 found that infants born from pregnant women who used fish-oil supplements in the months preceding delivery had stronger early life cognitive development.

At four years of age, University of Oslo researchers found that these children scored higher on mental processing tests than their peers.

University of Connecticut researchers found in 2002 that mothers who used omega 3 fatty acid supplements while expecting had children with more consistent sleeping patterns.

This is because exposure to the acids in the womb lead to the children having a more developed fetal central nervous system.

Experts at the National Library of Medicine also recommend using omega 3 fatty acid supplements to help manage symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

A 2014 Oxford University study of 395 children also found that a 600mg supplement of DHA could drop sleep disturbances in young children and increase their average nightly sleep time by an hour each.