All news

Health studies... can they always be trusted?

6/11/2003 12:00:00 AM

If you subscribe to a number of health newsletters you will I am sure be very familiar with the tendency for many companies to relate the results of a study to reinforce why you should buy a particular product. Nowhere is this practice more prevalent than in the health and food industry. This can often be a good thing because it helps give the consumer more information, PROVIDED the studies are unbiased and truthful. Of course that is what you would expect them to be.

But, are all these studies really giving you the real truth and are they are as unbiased as you think? Many of them are, but a lot of them are not and you should regard them with some degree of skepticism. Treat them with an additional degree of caution if they are isolated and there are not similar supporting studies. Also, consider if there are underlying motives or influences behind the study.

Sometimes those motives may be as simple as a researcher looking for funding for a pet project, other times it may be just a 'meal ticket'. I will give you an example of a study shortly which in my opinion is seriously misleading.

Info articles can also be flawed...

Don't accept the info contained within all articles that you read either, unless you are familiar with the authors work and can feel comfortable that he or she provides well researched information. I will give you an example of such an article before I move on to the study I referred to above.

The article that I will use as the example was within the same newsletter from where I got the study which I will talk about today. This particular newsletter is published by 'Third Age' which have a leaning towards pharmaceutical products. Some of the articles they publish are quite good but some are downright dangerous and poorly researched such as the one I am about to relate.

They published an article which promoted the use of Propecia for women who were suffering from hair loss. I contacted Third Age and suggested they print a warning to their readers that they had made a mistake in making such a recommendation, but they never did.

If you are a woman and saw that article and was interested please be aware that Propecia CANNOT be used by women. It is dangerous for many women particularly those of child bearing age. If you are pregnant and so much as TOUCH a Propecia tablet you are urged to see your physician quickly as the ingestion of the active ingredient through the skin of your fingers could result in a malformation of your unborn childs sexual organs.

Given that the manufacturer of Propecia is a major advertiser with this website I was astounded that they did not insist on a retraction. Was this an oversight, or was the financial bottom line more important? I don't know. So, don't accept everything you read at face value!

OK... back to today's subject of 'studies' and the example I promised you...

It is entitled 'YOU DON'T HAVE TO DRINK WATER' by Dianne Partie Lange who is a free lance writer in California who specializes in health issues. Now please bear in mind that Dianne was just reporting the facts of this study and not venturing an opinion whether it was good or bad... so, I am not 'knocking her'... I'm just relating a study which I find to be 'interesting'.

Anyway, let me quote a small section of the article...

"Staying well-hydrated requires drinking ample amounts of fluid, but U.S. researchers have found that even caffeinated beverages, such as coffee and cola, will do.

In a study at the University of Nebraska, 27 healthy men, ages 19 to 38, were confined to a heat- and humidity-controlled environment and fed comparable amount of calories, nutrients and fluids, depending on their body weight. But what they drank differed. On one diet, a third of the beverage allowance was plain water. On the other, the water was replaced with diet cola. The remaining two-thirds of the beverage allowance on both diets was equally divided between juice, coffee and caloric, caffeinated cola and noncaloric, noncaffeinated cola. On average, the men drank eight to nine 8-ounce beverages."

The study goes on to say that there were no differences in either diet in various measures of the men's hydration, including analysis of 24-hour urine samples. Nor was there any difference between men who consumed more, or less, caffeine.

Then comes the conclusions of this study which I am sure will be music to the ears of teenagers everywhere, and I quote, "Although water has its benefits -- it's a major source of fluoride, for example -- this study shows that it's not essential". This was further supported by lead author Ann Grandjean, a consultant to the U.S. Olympic Committee and professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center when she says "I can now tell people with confidence not to panic if they don't have water. You can still stay hydrated,"

Phew... now I'm not a professor at a University so I must have been wrong about the benefits of pure water for many decades, because a professor wouldn't put you wrong would they? So, I guess that it's now OK for me to replace my good pure water with diet coke? Oh, but if I did that I suppose I would have to get a fluoride supplement because that's one of the major benefits of water... so the study says... but on second thoughts maybe I had better give that part a miss because I know that a teaspoonful of fluoride can be fatal...

But, at least it would appear that the good professor agrees with me about how bad sugar is or else they probably would have used the ordinary coke in the study instead of the diet coke. I guess she figured that because most people eat so many suspect chemical additives in their food that a bit more in the form of artificial sweeteners in their diet coke won't make any difference.

As I said before this is all great news for those teenagers out there who never drink water and don't believe their parents when they are told that sodas are bad for them. After all, the professor says it is OK and the study is naturally unbiased because Universities are not influenced by business interests... no, of course not!

Oh, by the way, this study was published in the April issue of the Journal of the American College of Medicine. Although the study was funded by a grant from the Coca-Cola Co., the company had no control of the study design or publication of results.

If they say that they had no influence on the outcome of the study then I guess that must be true! OR... am I being just a wee bit naïve if I really believe that!

I hope I have managed to convey to you the message about studies? Use your own good common sense when assessing how impartial it may be!

In good health,