This is the kind of story that comes with the daily drumbeat of health/medical/science research stories – a story that gets a brief light-hearted comment at the watercooler because of the cute headline – "Want to Cut Cancer Risk? Try Munching Pistachios." But it’s a story that delivers almost no meaningful information. Why?
Because it:
Lung cancer is the top cause of cancer death in men and women in the US. So prevention is an important issue that demands better attention than this.
The cost of pistachios isn’t in question.
The story stated that the " pistachio group showed significantly higher blood levels of gamma-tocopherol" What does that mean? And what difference could it mean in peoples’ lives? Of course, not much can be said about such a small, short-term study, which makes the entire discussion of potential benefit – and the newsworthiness of the story – questionable.
There was no discussion of potential harms, but we will grade this as Not Applicable because this is not an intervention likely to cause harm.
The story never comments on the limitations of drawing conclusions from such a small (18 people in each group), short-term (4 weeks) study.
The story says that "Eating pistachios every day might reduce your risk for lung cancer and other malignancies." What other malignancies? The story never explains.
No independent sources were quoted in the story. Again, everything seems to have come from a news release.
The story didn’t give any context about nutritional approaches to reduce cancer risk.
The availability of pistachios isn’t in question.
No context was given about any other past research looking at vitamin E or gamma-tocopherol. And there is a substantial body of literature on this topic already from large cohort studies across the world.
The story appears to rely entirely on a news release.
The researcher’s quotes are the exact same quotes that appear in a news release from the American Association for Cancer Research.
There is no evidence of any independent reporting having been done on the story.
Systematic, Criteria-Driven
Take all the issues enmeshed in any cancer screening story and amplify it with the liquid biopsy issue. @AP's @CarlaKJohnson. did a solid job here. https://apnews.com/article/science-business-health-hodgkin-lymphoma-oregon-ca899bb9c4c7f1859d4e9ce16a1cf78d
Come on, NY Times; you must do better than this. Important research doesn’t need hype and the “breaking news” BS doesn’t help readers or patients. https://www.healthnewsreview.org/2022/03/nyt-proclaims-breaking-news/
Comments
Please note, comments are no longer published through this website. All previously made comments are still archived and available for viewing through select posts.
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