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Ogling Breasts Increases Men's Lifespan

Netlore Archive: Nonexistent medical study touts supposed benefits of men's mammary preoccupations

Description: Email hoax / Satire
Circulating since: March / April 2000
Status: False


Email example contributed in April 2000:

This is not a joke. It came from the New England Journal of Medicine.

Great news for girl watchers: Ogling over women's breasts is good for a man's health and can add years to his life, medical experts have discovered. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, "Just 10 minutes of staring at the charms of a well-endowed female is roughly equivalent to a 30-minute aerobics work-out" declared gerontologist Dr. Karen Weatherby.

Dr. Weatherby and fellow researchers at three hospitals in Frankfurt, Germany, reached the startling conclusion after comparing the health of 200 male outpatients - half of whom were instructed to look at busty females daily, the other half told to refrain from doing so. The study revealed that after five years, the chest-watchers had lower blood pressure, slower resting pulse rates and fewer instances of coronary artery disease.

"Sexual excitement gets the heart pumping and improves blood circulation," explains Dr. Weatherby. "There's no question: Gazing at breasts makes men healthier." "Our study indicates that engaging in this activity a few minutes daily cuts the risk of stroke and heart attack in half. We believe that by doing so consistently, the average man can extend his life four to five years."


Comments: Don't bet on it. No such study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine (check for yourself).

A search of the thousands of international medical journal articles contained in the Medline database turned up zero items on this topic and zero items authored by "Dr. Karen Weatherby," who presumably does not even exist.

If the story seems to smack of tabloid journalism, it's because that's precisely what it is. It began circulating via email in March or April 2000, not long after a similar article appeared in the consistently misinformative Weekly World News (nor is this the first time we've run into laughable rumors traceable to that source).

It goes without saying - I hope - that it's unwise to take medical advice from supermarket tabloids, still less from forwarded emails. Males who wish to increase their lifespans should consider practicing common sense as an alternative - it's more likely to achieve the desired result than any amount of breast ogling.

Admittedly, I don't have a medical study to back that up. Volunteers?


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