OK, you never bought the story about alligators in the sewer. But do you still believe any of these cardiovascular canards?

Why does the heart beat? Simple, according to a doctor’s son named Aristotle (384-322 BC), a Greek philosopher whose ideas influenced scientists for nearly two millennia. The beat and the pulse result from the boiling of blood in the heart, he said. Heat drives the blood from the cardiac boiler room into the vessels. The lungs, and brain, cool circulation.

It’s easy for us to take a smug view of Aristotle’s misunderstanding. But many of us today cling to false beliefs or urban legends. Some of what we believe may be hazardous, according to The Cleveland Clinic. Here’s how: …

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