Science Reports That Make Headlines Are Often Wrong
Have you seen some headlines recently that make you question the safety of the supplements you’re taking? The major media players never seem to miss an opportunity to bash dietary supplements and other forms of alternative medicine, and there’s a reason — it grabs your attention. But what if you knew that the scholarly scientific journals in which study results are reported are no different? According to one group of researchers, the editors of scientific journals play by many of the same rules when it comes to deciding what to print. Sensationalism sells, and the results of many if not most studies published in scientific journals are exaggerated or even flat out wrong. So what does this mean for you?
In an article published online in Public Library of Science Medicine (PloS), researchers suggest that because hundreds of thousands of studies are submitted for publication at the most prestigious journals, and because there aren’t enough pages to print all of the viable ones, the most sensational research is chosen. Often times, they say, the studies chosen for publication are not the best studies, in terms of being well designed or well conducted. It’s the research with positive results that is printed most frequently and most immediately, and often times this research is later refuted.
What are the implications of these editorial decisions for consumers of health news and information? Much of the research in the field of medicine attempts to discern whether or not certain treatments are effective for health conditions. If the reporting of results is skewed in favor of studies that have positive results, it may seem that some treatments are truly effective, when in fact they’re not. Or it may seem that some treatments are more effective than they actually are.
Some have suggested that the published literature on certain pharmaceutical drugs may be comprised entirely of positive studies, at the exclusion of other equally valid research. Whether it’s due to the influence of Big Pharma dollars or not, the reporting of study results both in scientific journals and in big media seems to be skewed in favor of pharmaceuticals. The studies that show drugs have no effects or negative effects usually go unpublished, while the ones that show they have positive effects make big headlines.
The Anti-Aging Bottom Line: Don’t make decisions that affect your health on the basis of sensational headlines or reporting. Read everything with an objective eye and know that science builds upon each study. Smaller studies are stepping-stones to larger ones and these preliminary studies can either lay the groundwork or end up wrong. No one study is the end-all, be-all of any topic. Also, the next time your local newscaster uses a big scary headline linked to a study, head to your computer and do some research yourself by visiting www.pubmed.gov or medline.gov.
