Do you believe these new "HEALTH" studies that pop up in the news?

[EEEEEEP]

A lot of “new studies” now blanket TV or facebook feeds. Some of them even don’t sound like science… Ever heard that “Chocolate is good for you” AND that “Sugar is not that bad for you”

That is a lot of junk science... 

What is it?
-   “science” that’s done which is fraudulent, has political, financial and other motives behind it.
Scientists may down play things or just not mention bad aspects of a certain product. Additionally, sometimes causations can’t be explained.
Sometimes they fiddle with data until the conclusion fits the hypothesis..

Why is it bad?
-   It discredits scientists
-   It tarnishes and make people not believe in good research
-   Many people duplicate the new study and get the same result which confirms the bad science

.. hey if someone funds you, you’re gonna say something good right???….

Where is it notoriously bad?
-   Pharmaceutical and medicinal
-   Fitness and health
-   Health Sciences
-   Climate change

Climate change..
What comes to mind .. is climate change… and anti-climate change accepters.  They often accept things said from people like Steven Milloy on fox (who have ties to oil, gas and tobacco).

Pharmaceutical and medicinal
In the pharmaceutical and medicinal industry, studies like this  say that:

However, clinical research is increasingly sponsored by companies that make these products, either because the companies directly perform the studies, or fully or partially fund them. Previous research has found that pharmaceutical industry sponsored studies tend to favor the sponsors’ drugs more than studies with any other sources of sponsorship.

In the health industry according to the ABC, Coke has been sponsoring many organisations (ironically health organisations).

Louise Burke from the Australian Institute of Sport told the Heraldshe had received a very small fee in 2010 to present independently funded research by the AIS into the role of caffeine on sports performance.

RECENTLY, UC Irvine received a 200 million dollar donation to look at  "integrative health”.

Several major institutions, including Stanford and Johns Hopkins, have added elements of integrative medicine to their curricula — prompted at least in part by demand from patients and the backing of wealthy adherents (donors).

Health industry
In the health industry, they have been quietly paying scientists to shut up about how bad sugar is! One such funded article is:

New Study Shows Children and Adolescents Who Eat Candy Are Less Overweight or Obese

Another big thing that you’ll read a lot is “Chocolate is good for you”…. Well that’s funded by big industry too.   Over the past 30 years many people in these companies have been spruiking the benefits of dark chocolate and now it’s the gospel. Many studies gave overwhelmingly good results! Chocolate is actually not good for you.

The Mars company has sponsored hundreds of scientific studies to show cocoa is good for you.

You hear the things that the say about walnuts … well that’s funded too.

Funding for this study has been provided by the California Walnut Commission.

Onto now..
There are new articles saying that “Four cups of coffee a day could slash risk of early death” or that “Cheese is a heart healthy food”.

But a new review of studies has good news for Brie fans: cheese may actually prevent heart attacks.

The article on coffee was even on THE CONVERSATION which is an academic site.

Word on the street is also that eating Macdonalds fries (which I heard from a few friends) is good for curing baldness…. Which I found here..
The most dodgy of dodgiest studies…

Yes you read that right, a research team at the University of Exeter have discovered it is good for you to inhale your partner’s stinky farts as the gases in them can combat diseases.

My thoughts
Every time I hear “New study” or “New Research” when it comes to most vitamins, food products, I don’t believe the hype. There’s always a chance that it’s funded by big research and most of the time it is (especially when it comes to sweets).

I don’t believe most food and health sciences as I find it hard to know what’s true and what’s not! My trust in food science and some health sciences has dropped due to things like p hacking and positive bias.

Now… I’m no genius, but I’ve seen and read enough to be half sceptical about these things…
If I’m going to believe science it needs:
- Sourcing
- Context
- Methodology
- Funding

HOW are some of these studies even considered "proper" if they're so compromised?  The hypothesis of some of these studies are ridiculous too... LIKE HOW IS CHEESE HEALTHY?

On to you…
Do you believe many of these new studies?

[PhoenixxFire]

Chocolate is actually not good for you.

Please don't tell me this 

I definitely don't believe the majority of them. Occasionally there is one I do believe (I pretty sure moderate coffee consumption is good for you....at least I hope so). The rest of them I share to a facebook group i'm part of (I know for a fucking fact that's not science) - turns out there's lots of people who reckon its bs.

It's pretty easy to tell that they're rubbish when you see things like 'from a study of 50 participants' like yeah, no.

[EEEEEEP]

Please don't tell me this 

I definitely don't believe the majority of them. Occasionally there is one I do believe (I pretty sure moderate coffee consumption is good for you....at least I hope so). The rest of them I share to a facebook group i'm part of (I know for a fucking fact that's not science) - turns out there's lots of people who reckon its bs.

It's pretty easy to tell that they're rubbish when you see things like 'from a study of 50 participants' like yeah, no.

What about red wine?

We all hear that red wine is "Good " for us, but the research on that is mixed at best
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/drinking-red-wine-is-good-for-you--or-maybe-not/2017/12/01/49f55e7a-cbd3-11e7-aa96-54417592cf72_story.html?utm_term=.ee96e1d64a33

A lot of dietitians and news site say that "drinking one cup of red wine is good.. per night"... but it's actually sort of a lie  HAHA

[elysepopplewell]

A lot of the time I don't think it's pseudo-science, it's just very obscurely framed aspects of true science. An article for the Daily Mail isn't likely to go into the methods of testing any of these studies simply because their audience isn't there to learn something new, they are there to tag their wine-loving friend and joke about "see! It's healthy!"

It's inaccurate Journalism for not covering the science in an informative, accurate, and non-deceiving way.

[Quantum44]

There is definitely a lot of misleading scientific research being spread around Facebook. Only site I completely trust for my science news is phys.org

[Sine]

tbh anyone can prove anything they want to by incorrectly choosing samples populations, blatant errors in trials done, not taking confounders into account, etc. If you really want to be sure go through the scientific journals which may not always be avaliable for these claims) and make sure there wasn't any dodgy stuff going on or aspects not taken into account. I really don't think anyone really take those types of articles seriously.

[Yertle the Turtle]

I feel like most people are going to agree with this, since it seems pretty obvious, and it is more of a surprise that more people don't notice. The funding for research has to come from somewhere, and no matter who gives the funding they are always going to have some point of view, and since they control the cash flow, it is logical for scientists to interpret data to provide support for that point of view.

The problem is that raw data can be interpreted in such radically different ways, and therefore it is easy to back any side without breaking your code of ethics, since you can show scientific data that will fit whatever case you want it to fit. It is a problem with society, that people are so impressionable, many people actually believe that anything that appears in print must be true and should be accepted. This is the underlying issue, which must be analysed in any social problem.

[EEEEEEP]

tbh anyone can prove anything they want to by incorrectly choosing samples populations, blatant errors in trials done, not taking confounders into account, etc. If you really want to be sure go through the scientific journals which may not always be avaliable for these claims) and make sure there wasn't any dodgy stuff going on or aspects not taken into account. I really don't think anyone really take those types of articles seriously.

Even if there's scientific journals, some of it is really shockingly biased (The sugar industry paid of hundreds and hundreds of scientists to say stuff ...and some of it is even like peer reviewed (GASP !) ).

[Vaike]

Great post E6P. Misguided and misleading scientific research seems to be a large problem, which in turn is magnified by misleading media stories. Veritasium actually made a really great video about the pitfalls of scientific research and communication called Is Most Published Research Wrong?. Although it doesn't touch upon the issues involved in sensationalist media, it does address the scientific side quite well, I'd highly encourage giving it a watch.