I am leery of experts; am unwilling to accept what they say and refuse to let my life and my actions be dictated by said experts. Let us take two recent headlines to quickly and clearly illustrate the point I am making. There was a recent news report about how alcohol increases risk of breast cancer. This isn’t exactly news; they have been saying this for many years now.

I read an almost completely contradictory news headline on the same day: this one said that beer can cure cancer… beer, which is an alcoholic beverage. This ‘news’ isn’t new either, various ‘experts’ have been telling us for years how alcohol consumption can be good for us.

So what are we to make of these completely confusing bits of advice that the experts give us? Remember how they said for the longest time that eggs were terrible for us but then they went and changed their mind; but not before millions of poor egg yolks had been scarified at the altar of medical science?

Some studies are not reliable

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Clinical trials should be sufficiently large, the subjects should be alike (comparing like with like) and the findings should be plausible. However, some so called studies publish results based on a small rat study where findings may simply not apply to humans. Some studies are misleading in other ways. For instance when we were being told that pineapples can help us lose weight (and were being told to buy some ‘natural’ weight loss drug made from pineapples), this claim was made on a study of an enzyme called bromelain found in pineapples. So saying that pineapples will help in weight loss is not just a stretch, it is actually false.

 

Some studies have suspect funding

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This brings us yet another reason not to trust the so called studies: funding. Horlicks funded a study with the express purpose of being able to make the claim that their milk drink makes kids grow faster. They then made this claim – legitimately, it would seem – via TV ads that you and I watched and believed. Similarly manufacturers of alcoholic beverages fund studies to demonstrate how wine is packed with goodness and how whisky is also good for health.

So whom do we believe?

The rule of thumb here should be, if the study is sufficiently large enough, was conducted by a trustworthy institution in a scientific and controlled manner; and if there have been sufficient numbers of other studies to support the findings, we should pay attention. As with all things in life, moderation is the key here. So long as the study appears to offer a moderate view and not an extreme one, we may want to keep its findings in mind.

Most importantly, we have to learn to view each study with a healthy amount of skepticism. We need to learn not to be gullible and to do some of our own ‘research’; not believe with wide eyed credulity every ‘natural cure’ and ‘revolutionary treatment’ that well meaning people forward via Whatsapp.

 

Author – Reena Daruwalla

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