Lots of news coverage of an interesting study and accompanying commentary in this week’s “online first” edition of the Archives of Internal Medicine – suggesting that fasting may not be necessary before cholesterol tests. From the banks of the Charles, Harold DeMonaco, MS, one of our expert story reviewers on HealthNewsReview.org, weighs in with his [...]
We’re seeing a lot of stories botch the reporting of the Danish study showing a statistical association between statin use and fewer deaths from cancer. The emphasis we added is deliberate and important. That’s all it showed. At Reuters Health, Gene Emery got it right. Excerpts: “Danish cancer patients taking cholesterol-lowering statin drugs were 15 [...]
Headlines this week: “Aspirin could be a lifeline for men who have undergone treatment for prostate cancer.” “Daily dose of aspirin can prolong life for those with prostate cancer.” “Aspirin study shows benefit for prostate cancer patients.” Reacting to some of these headlines is this guest post by Richard Hoffman, MD, MPH, one of our [...]
Around the globe today, there are misleading headlines about a study in the BMJ, “Long term alcohol intake and risk of rheumatoid arthritis in women: a population based cohort study.” Alcohol cuts arthritis risk by half in women – Times of India Alcohol ‘lowers arthritis risk’ for women – The Independent Alcohol ‘lowers arthritis risk’ [...]
A paper published in Pediatrics, “Respiratory Tract Illnesses During the First Year of Life: Effect of Dog and Cat Contacts,” is getting lots of news attention, but most of it misses what most such stories usually miss: You can’t prove cause-and-effect from an observational study. And there are big limitations to research based on people [...]
CAFFEINE LINKED TO LOWER SKIN CANCER RISK – ABC NEWS CAFFEINE IN COFFEE MAY HELP LOWER RISK OF SKIN CANCER – Fox News Addendum on July 4: Good news, java junkies: Researchers have found the more coffee you drink, the more you may be protecting yourself against skin cancer. – CNN.com None of these stories [...]
My local NBC station (KARE-11) reported the “coffee may protect against heart failure” study 9 minutes deep into its local newscast last evening. It wasn’t a local study. It wasn’t a local story. In our community, we had a 5 year old shot and killed while he was sleeping in his home. We had major [...]
Here were some of the headlines or lead lines: Coffee May Be Part of the Recipe for a Longer Life (WebMD) “Coffee drinkers who worry about the jolt of java it takes to get them going in the morning might just as well relax and pour another cup.” (MSNBC) Daily Coffee May Help Keep Grim [...]
In the Wall Street Journal, Gautam Naik has a thoughtful piece, “Analytical Trend Troubles Scientists,” hitting on the limitations of – and the explosion in the number of – observational studies. Excerpts: “While the gold standard of medical research is the randomly controlled experimental study, scientists have recently rushed to pursue observational studies, which are [...]
Obesity medicine doc-blogger Yoni Freedhoff writes, “Why I Can No Longer Trust Medscape.“ In a nutshell, he’s driven nuts by Medscape being “probably the largest online continuing medical education (CME) provider” but using that platform to do the following: “Looking at the 3 most recent observational study failures, where the studies were so poor as [...]
Better than a competing piece by Reuters but still a little short on some details about this asthma drug study.
An adequate summary of this asthma drug trial’s design doesn’t make up for the overly optimistic tone about the drug’s future. A New York Times story was better.
This story focuses on a family that may have a rare genetic mutation that increases their risk of heart disease. Unfortunately, the “rare” part wasn’t mentioned until 1,600 words into this 2,100 word story.
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