Michael Joyce is a writer-producer with HealthNewsReview.org and tweets as @mlmjoyce
It doesn’t help matters when a news release opens with a quote like this from one of the study’s lead authors:
Artificially sweetened drinks have a checkered reputation in the public because of the purported health risks that have never really been documented. Our study clearly shows they help avoid cancer recurrence and death in patients who have been treated for advanced colon cancer, and that is an exciting finding.
Actually, it’s not that clear at all.
Mainly because this is an observational study suggesting that colon cancer patients who regularly drink diet soda have a lower risk of their tumors coming back, or of dying from their cancer. With this type of study it’s inaccurate and misleading to imply this is a cause-and-effect relationship.
Two other reasons make it not so clear:
First, the data on diet soda consumption are drawn from participants trying to accurately fill out food and drink questionnaires months after the fact. This sort of self-reporting has been shown to be highly unreliable.
Second, the study could not determine if other risk factors — such as diet, activity level, smoking, and other lifestyle choices — might contribute to lower cancer recurrence and mortality.
We were glad to see these limitations included in a HealthDay news story, but it’s not good journalistic practice to reprint quotes regarding the touted benefits directly from the Yale news release, which the story did.
It’s noteworthy that the quote featured above, from Charles Fuchs MD, MPH (Director, Yale Cancer Center) is at odds with more cautious language he used in the video embedded in the news release. He says:
Do I think that (artificial sweeteners like) Nutrasweet or Stevia actually have an anti-cancer effect? I do not.
As self-evident as that may seem to some, for the general public, that’s a very important point — if only to keep cancer patients from making a run to the soft drink section of their local grocery with the misguided notion that diet soda will stave off recurrence … or from focusing on Fuch’s ill-advised quote that this research “clearly shows (these sweeteners) help avoid cancer recurrence and death.”
Here’s what IS clear and it’s mentioned in the very last line of the published research:
Further studies are needed to confirm these findings.
Opinions on other issues in news, journals, PR, advertising, marketing
Major revisions + reversals of reporting about the efficacy of remdesivir and HCQ have compromised the public's trust in scientists and physicians. Complexity and caution are key to public #COVID19 communications @garyschwitzer https://ja.ma/3fzUW0M
SPH adjunct associate professor @garyschwitzer presented to @Georgetown University public health students on how #covid19 has been "the perfect storm of politics, PR, and polluted messages to the public."
Watch the recorded zoom presentation here: https://www.healthnewsreview.org/2020/09/perfect-storm-of-politics-pr-polluted-messages-to-the-public/.
Comments (3)
Please note, comments are no longer published through this website. All previously made comments are still archived and available for viewing through select posts.
roxanne nelson
July 23, 2018 at 1:46 pmI wrote up this story for Medscape, and I knew a lot of the media would go wild over it. Dr. Fuchs clearly said that his theory is the “substitution effect,” that substituting sugar laden sodas for the diet ones helped curb recurrence and death. Not the diet soda itself. He also emphasized that maintaining a healthy weight, exercise and eating a low glycemic diet were extremely important, and not just drinking diet soda. But for patients who do drink soda, he felt it was reasonable for doctors to suggest switching to low/no cal drinks, as it was a better option, as people find it hard to give up the craving for sugar. So it is a shame that most news outlets didn’t take the time to speak with the authors, or actually read the full study–as much of this information is in their paper. The Yale press release spun it to make it sound like soda was a new anti-cancer agent.
Emmanuel Hipolito
July 29, 2018 at 4:15 amVery consistent with my own thoughts no real evidence based literature I take diet pop.
Matt Hudkins
July 30, 2018 at 3:05 pmAt the same time, I wouldn’t agree in wholly discounting the role sweeteners, such as monk fruit and stevia, play in decreasing cancer recurrence and metastasis.
Our Comments Policy
But before leaving a comment, please review these notes about our policy.
You are responsible for any comments you leave on this site.
This site is primarily a forum for discussion about the quality (or lack thereof) in journalism or other media messages (advertising, marketing, public relations, medical journals, etc.) It is not intended to be a forum for definitive discussions about medicine or science.
We will delete comments that include personal attacks, unfounded allegations, unverified claims, product pitches, profanity or any from anyone who does not list a full name and a functioning email address. We will also end any thread of repetitive comments. We don”t give medical advice so we won”t respond to questions asking for it.
We don”t have sufficient staffing to contact each commenter who left such a message. If you have a question about why your comment was edited or removed, you can email us at feedback@healthnewsreview.org.
There has been a recent burst of attention to troubles with many comments left on science and science news/communication websites. Read “Online science comments: trolls, trash and treasure.”
The authors of the Retraction Watch comments policy urge commenters:
We”re also concerned about anonymous comments. We ask that all commenters leave their full name and provide an actual email address in case we feel we need to contact them. We may delete any comment left by someone who does not leave their name and a legitimate email address.
And, as noted, product pitches of any sort – pushing treatments, tests, products, procedures, physicians, medical centers, books, websites – are likely to be deleted. We don”t accept advertising on this site and are not going to give it away free.
The ability to leave comments expires after a certain period of time. So you may find that you’re unable to leave a comment on an article that is more than a few months old.
You might also like