Here are 50 facts from FunFact's “Health & medicine” topic, all checked. Each one cites its source (who.int, pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, allodocteurs.fr…) and the date it was checked. This topic is part of FunFact Premium.
Vaccinating a mother during pregnancy protects her baby from whooping cough before the baby's own vaccines.
In France, this vaccination is recommended between the 20th and 36th week of pregnancy, because it increases the passage of maternal antibodies across the placenta.
Infants are not vaccinated until age 2 months, yet whooping cough is most dangerous in the very young. The antibodies received from the mother protect them during these fragile first weeks.
In the southern Carpathians, peasants covered their wounds with silk from the purseweb spider, Atypus
They cut open the silk tubes built by the Atypus spider and applied the inner lining to the wound, supposed to help it heal.
This effect is attributed to the silk's antiseptic properties, since it is made of proteins, but that explanation is not proven. It was a folk practice of the past, not a treatment to copy.
Fresh snow can reflect up to 80% of UV rays: you can get sunburned in the middle of winter while skiing.
According to the WHO, grass, soil or water reflect less than 10%, sand about 15%; at altitude, the atmosphere also filters out fewer rays.
UV rays increase by about 10% every 1,000 meters (3,300 ft). Cold gives the impression that there is no danger, but UV does not depend on temperature. The eyes are affected too: snow blindness is a burn of the cornea.
The idea that porphyria, a blood disease, inspired vampire legends is highly disputed.
This disease makes skin sensitive to sunlight. A biochemist, David Dolphin, popularized the idea in 1985, but many experts reject it.
Folklore describes vampires walking around in broad daylight, and porphyria is extremely rare, while vampire tales were common in the 18th century. The link also stigmatizes people with the disease.
A 1943 air raid on Bari that released mustard gas revealed its effect on white blood cells.
On December 2, 1943, the ship John Harvey, loaded with mustard gas bombs, was hit; survivors showed a collapse in white blood cell counts.
This observation helped point researchers toward chemotherapy, but historians add nuance: Yale pharmacologists were already testing nitrogen derivatives of mustard gas, and the story of a single origin in Bari is disputed.
Since July 2017, codeine is no longer sold over the counter in France: a prescription is required.
Announced on July 12, 2017, the measure covers all medicines containing codeine, an opioid that the liver partly converts into morphine.
The speed of this conversion varies greatly from person to person, with a risk of overdose in some, or of dependence in cases of misuse. Codeine is also contraindicated in children under 12.
Antibiotic resistance directly caused 1.27 million deaths worldwide in 2019.
It was associated with 4.95 million deaths that year, according to a study in The Lancet: more than AIDS or malaria.
A bacterium becomes resistant when it survives the antibiotic and then passes on that resistance. Every unnecessary antibiotic dose (for example against a virus) speeds up the process. The WHO considers it a major threat to global health.
Drinking ice-cold water barely burns any extra calories.
Warming up a glass of cold water uses only a few calories.
Although the body has to warm cold water up to its internal temperature (37 °C / 98.6 °F), the number of calories burned in the process is negligible for weight loss.
The 1918 “Spanish flu” wasn’t Spanish: the name comes from wartime censorship.
Neutral Spain let its press report freely, while the countries at war hid their cases.
The first reported cases date from March 1918, among American soldiers in Kansas. The death toll is estimated between 20 and 100 million depending on the studies; the French history site Hérodote puts it at nearly 50 million.
A single dose of aspirin blocks your platelets for their whole lifespan, 7 to 10 days.
Aspirin irreversibly inhibits an enzyme in platelets (cyclooxygenase). These cell fragments cannot make it again.
Platelets have no nucleus: they do not renew their proteins. The effect therefore lasts until the spleen destroys them, which makes clotting slower. That is why any aspirin use should be reported before surgery or dental care.
The world’s first successful hand transplant took place in Lyon, in 1998.
On September 23, 1998, a team led by Jean-Michel Dubernard performs a hand transplant on a 48-year-old New Zealander.
The recipient asked to have the hand amputated in 2001, after stopping his anti-rejection treatment. The first double hand transplant followed in Lyon in January 2000.
Source: Allodocteurs · Checked on October 24, 2026
Medical Myths
Hair and nails don’t keep growing after death.
The skin dehydrates and retracts, which makes hairs look longer and nails look more prominent.
The cells that make hair and nails need oxygen and sugar delivered by the blood. Without circulation, they stop within hours. The idea comes from an optical illusion seen on bodies.
A person who is drowning cannot call for help: drowning is often silent.
The victim is unable to call out, speak or grab a lifebuoy, and can drown silently near other swimmers.
Instinct pushes them to keep their mouth at water level and spread their arms out to the sides, unable to wave their arms to call for help. Children playing near a pool or the sea must be watched continuously, and emergency services alerted immediately.
During REM sleep, your muscles are paralyzed so you don’t act out your dreams.
The brain blocks the activity of motor nerves: only the eyes, breathing and a few small muscles keep moving.
When this block is missing, a person may shout, hit out or fall out of bed while dreaming: this is REM sleep behavior disorder. It deserves a medical consultation, since it can foreshadow certain neurological diseases years later.
Night work is classified as “probably carcinogenic” by the WHO’s cancer agency.
The IARC classified it in group 2A as early as 2007, then confirmed that classification in 2019, because of the disruption of the body clock.
Group 2A means the evidence is limited in humans and sufficient in animals. It does not measure any one person’s risk, but it shows that shifting the internal clock and being exposed to light at night have a real biological effect.
The cholera bacterium was described as early as 1854 by an Italian, but nobody listened.
Filippo Pacini observes it during autopsies; Robert Koch rediscovers it independently in 1883-1884.
At the time, the miasma theory dominated and Pacini published several times without being heard. The bacterium’s official name, Vibrio cholerae Pacini 1854, was only adopted in 1965.
You can have a concussion without ever losing consciousness.
In children, fewer than 10% of sports-related concussions involve loss of consciousness.
The signs are more often headaches, dizziness, confusion, memory problems or vision problems. An athlete suspected of a concussion must leave the field and not return to play: the brain is more vulnerable right after a first blow.
Nearly one in seven people worldwide lives with a mental health disorder, according to the WHO.
The WHO now counts more than a billion people (it estimated 970 million, one in eight, for 2019). Anxiety and depression are the most common disorders.
These figures show that a mental disorder is nothing out of the ordinary. Yet a large share of those affected receive no care, because of lack of access to services or because of stigma.
A study of 650,000 Danish children found no link between the MMR vaccine and autism.
Published in 2019 in the Annals of Internal Medicine, it followed 657,461 children born between 1999 and 2010 for more than 5 million person-years.
The idea of a link came from a 1998 paper by Andrew Wakefield, entirely retracted by The Lancet in 2010 for fraud and ethical violations. Autism is noticed around ages 1 to 3, the age of vaccination, hence the confusion between coincidence and cause.
The word “nicotine” comes from a French ambassador who praised tobacco as a remedy.
Jean Nicot, posted in Lisbon around 1560, sent tobacco powder to the French court as a cure for migraines.
Tobacco was not his discovery: he mainly made it fashionable at court. The plant received the scientific name Nicotiana, and its active ingredient the name nicotine. Sources differ on the intended patient: Catherine de' Medici or her son Francis II.
Source: Hérodote.net · Checked on October 24, 2026
Mental Health
In France, a 14-hour course teaches “mental health first aid” to anyone.
Adapted from the Australian program Mental Health First Aid, it has been taught in France since September 2019 and is open to everyone.
Like physical first aid skills, it teaches you to spot the signs of a disorder, listen without judging and point people toward a professional. It does not make you a therapist, but a first point of support.
The first ECG machine weighed about 270 kg (600 lb); patients dipped their arms in buckets of salt water.
Willem Einthoven, in Leiden, early 20th century: the buckets of saline solution served as electrodes.
The device was too heavy to be moved from the laboratory to the hospital, hence a remote recording over a telephone line. Einthoven received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1924 for this invention.
A glass of wine, a small beer and a whisky contain about the same amount of alcohol: 10 g (0.35 oz).
In France, a “standard drink” is 10 g of pure alcohol: about 10 cl (3.4 fl oz) of 12% wine, 25 cl (8.5 fl oz) of 5% beer or 3 cl (1 fl oz) of 40% whisky.
The catch: drinks served at home or in a bar are often fuller than these volumes. Santé publique France advises no more than 10 standard drinks a week, no more than 2 a day, and having alcohol-free days.
Each cigarette takes about 20 minutes off a smoker's life, not the 11 minutes once reported.
An analysis from University College London (2024) gives 17 minutes for a man and 22 for a woman, in the United Kingdom.
The old estimate of 11 minutes dated from 2000. The new calculations rely on more recent population follow-ups. Quitting early pays off: at 10 cigarettes a day, a week without smoking avoids losing a day of life.
The “normal” 37 °C (98.6 °F) comes from German doctor Carl Wunderlich, who analyzed about a million readings.
In the 19th century, he followed about 25,000 patients and settled on 37 °C as the average. Recent measurements give an average closer to 36.5 to 36.6 °C (97.7 to 97.9 °F).
Temperature varies through the day, with age, the site of measurement and activity. So there is no single “normal” number. Fever is defined as 38 °C (100.4 °F) or above, measured with a thermometer.
The Pasteur Institute was funded by an international public appeal that raised over 2.5 million gold francs.
Launched in 1886, the fundraising campaign reaches 1.7 million in November 1886 and tops 2.5 million in January 1888.
The institute was inaugurated on November 14, 1888, in the presence of French President Sadi Carnot. Donations came from all social classes and many countries; the pediment bears the inscription “Souscription publique 1888” (“Public subscription 1888”).
World Tuberculosis Day is March 24, the day Koch announced his bacillus in 1882.
At the time, tuberculosis was ravaging Europe and America; the WHO chose this date for World TB Day.
Robert Koch’s discovery paved the way for diagnosis and treatment. Even today, tuberculosis remains one of the deadliest infectious diseases in the world.
A Mexican family of 19 members across five generations has hypertrichosis, an excess of body hair.
This rare genetic condition, congenital generalized hypertrichosis, covers the face and torso in hair: it's sometimes called “werewolf syndrome.”
In the men of the family, hair covers about 98% of the body, except the hands and feet; the women have lighter hair growth. Two of them perform in the Mexican National Circus. The family helped identify the gene responsible.
The placebo effect works even when you know the pill is just sugar.
Believing you're being treated is sometimes enough to ease pain.
Studies have shown that an “open-label placebo” (the patient knows it's a fake pill) can still relieve some symptoms, such as chronic pain. The brain then releases natural painkillers.
The body mass index (BMI) was devised by a Belgian born in Ghent, Adolphe Quetelet.
Between 1830 and 1850, this statistician developed the “Quetelet index,” weight divided by height squared. The name “BMI” dates from 1972.
Quetelet never meant it as a medical tool: he described the “average man” of a population, in his “social physics.” Ancel Keys renamed it in 1972 and judged BMI suited to population studies, not to individuals.
Trepanation, drilling into the skull of a living person, has been practiced for about 7,000 years.
A skull found in Ensisheim (Alsace, in eastern France), dated to 5100-4900 BC, has two healed holes: the man survived the operations.
This man was about 50 years old. We do not know why he was operated on: his skull shows no injury or disease. Later, trepanation was performed after head injuries, to remove bone fragments or drain blood.
On a cloudy day, more than 90% of the Sun's UV rays still get through the clouds.
According to Cancer Research UK, more than 90% of UV can pass through clouds: you can get sunburned even on an overcast, windy or cool day.
Clouds block a good share of visible light but very little UV. Since you don't feel the heat, you don't see the risk. Even under clouds, you should seek shade, cover up and wear sunscreen.
To treat some serious intestinal infections, doctors transplant stool from a healthy donor.
In a 2013 Dutch trial, this transplant cured 81% of patients after the first infusion, versus 31% with the antibiotic alone.
These are Clostridioides difficile infections that keep coming back after antibiotics. The idea is to repopulate the gut with the donor's good bacteria. The small trial was stopped earlier than planned because the difference was so clear.
In France, 15 is no longer just for emergencies: it also connects you to a health professional remotely.
The Service d’accès aux soins (SAS, the “care access service”) answers at 15 to give medical advice, a prescription, a consultation, or a referral.
The number of the SAMU, France’s emergency medical service, has also become the number of the SAS. If your regular doctor is not available, you can reach a health professional remotely. For a life-threatening emergency, the rules do not change: 15, 18, or 112.
Quitting smoking between ages 25 and 34 adds about ten years of life compared with those who keep smoking.
New England Journal of Medicine study (2013): about 9 years gained by quitting between 35 and 44, and 6 years between 45 and 54.
It is never too late to quit: even at 50, you recover years. Regular smokers were about three times more likely to die than non-smokers. The study is American and observational, but the order of magnitude is widely accepted.
Nutri-Score, the A-to-E label on food, was born in a French research laboratory.
It was designed by the team of Professor Serge Hercberg (Inserm, the French national health research institute, and Sorbonne Paris Nord University) and officially adopted by France in 2017.
Each product gets a letter and a color based on a calculation per 100 g (3.5 oz): sugars, saturated fat and salt count against it, fiber, protein and fruits and vegetables in its favor. It is used to compare products of the same type, not to say a food is “forbidden.”
The legend that carrots give you night vision was popularized by British propaganda in 1940.
To hide the use of airborne radar, the RAF attributed its night-fighter pilots’ successes to a diet rich in carrots.
Carrots contain beta-carotene, which the body turns into vitamin A, useful for vision. But eating more than you need does not improve eyesight. A vitamin A deficiency, on the other hand, can cause night blindness.
Breast milk contains sugars the baby can't digest: they feed the baby's bacteria.
These oligosaccharides are the third-largest solid component of human milk, after lactose and fats.
The baby doesn't absorb them, but they feed the good bacteria in its gut, such as bifidobacteria. Their composition varies from one mother to another, and they are far less abundant in cow's milk.
Star fruit, the exotic star-shaped fruit, can be toxic for people with kidney disease.
It contains caramboxin, a neurotoxin, and oxalic acid, which diseased kidneys clear poorly.
Symptoms range from hiccups to mental confusion and seizures, up to coma and sometimes death. The fruit is not recommended with kidney failure or dialysis; if in doubt, ask for medical advice.
A latex allergy often comes with an allergy to banana, avocado or chestnut
Latex-fruit syndrome affects 30 to 50% of people allergic to latex, through cross-reaction of their antibodies with similar proteins.
The list of foods also includes kiwi, peach, tomato, potato and bell pepper. It's an increased risk, not a certainty: about half of latex-allergic people don't react to these foods.
Worldwide, 8 in 10 teenagers don’t move enough, according to the WHO.
In 2016, 81% of 11-to-17-year-olds did not reach the recommended hour of daily physical activity; girls are more affected than boys.
The WHO recommends an average of 60 minutes a day of moderate to vigorous activity for ages 5 to 17. Walking or cycling to school, running at recess, school sports: everything counts toward the total.
About one in twenty hospital patients in France has a healthcare-associated infection.
The 2017 national survey by Santé publique France found 4.98% of patients infected, among more than 80,000 patients in 403 facilities.
Urinary, surgical-site and lung infections are the most common. This prevalence has not fallen since 2012. Hand hygiene by caregivers, notably with an alcohol-based hand rub, is one of the main means of prevention.
The world’s first partial face transplant was performed in Amiens, France, in 2005.
On November 27, 2005, a donor’s nose, lips and chin are grafted onto Isabelle Dinoire, 38, who had been disfigured by her dog.
The Amiens team (Bernard Devauchelle, Benoît Lengelé) was assisted by Jean-Michel Dubernard, from Lyon. Isabelle Dinoire died in April 2016, aged 49; according to the press, after complications linked to anti-rejection treatment (the hospital did not specify the cause).
Source: Allodocteurs · Checked on October 24, 2026
Physical Activity
In France, 95% of adults risk their health through lack of physical activity or too much sitting.
According to Anses (2022), France’s food and health safety agency, only 5% of adults have a level of activity and sedentary time that protects them.
The opinion relies on the Inca 3 study (2014–2015). The risk comes as much from inactivity as from sitting too long: breaking up sitting periods with short walks counts too.
Walking, running or doing yoga reduces symptoms of depression, according to a BMJ analysis (2024).
It pooled 218 clinical trials and more than 14,000 participants: exercise reduces symptoms moderately, more so when intense.
Exercise can complement a treatment, not replace it in severe depression. The authors also stress that the quality of many trials is limited: these results should be read with nuance.
In 2012, a patient judged to be in a vegetative state for 12 years indicated by thought that he was not in pain.
Doctors asked him to imagine playing tennis to say “yes,” and walking around his home to say “no.”
Adrian Owen's team, at Western Ontario University, detected these two images in his brain. The patient, 39, had been in a car accident. Clinical observations still describe him as vegetative.
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