This news release speculates that a study in rats shows a new weight loss implant is superior to existing weight loss devices used in humans. That’s jumping ahead of the evidence.
The story’s headline states: “Virtual reality to help detect early risk of Alzheimer’s.” That is misleading. The researchers haven’t even recruited study participants yet, much less conducted the study or analyzed the results.
This leaves both investors and lay audiences without enough information to evaluate how useful the new product will be, should it pass muster with the FDA.
This release needed a strong caution that observations made in tissue samples and mice don’t always translate to human outcomes.
Breakthrough? Based on the story of one patient? We’re told the procedure hasn’t been done often. But how often, and what happened to the other women?
While probiotics have been a popular focus of research in recent years, the claim that they could help millions with bipolar disease is unwarranted.
The release claims the diet “significantly improved blood pressure, heart rate, cholesterol, mood and cognitive function” but doesn’t provide any numbers to allow readers to gauge the size of improvement.
This news release did a good job of explaining how the study was done but didn’t provide data on benefits, costs, or harms.
In researching this @bopinon column on medical misinformation, I reached @garyschwitzer who said the information pollution problem goes back to the 1980s, when PR people started tempting reporters with easy, uplifting, prepackaged hype.
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