I’ve spent my last few posts focusing on some very bad studies that have been prominently featured in the media lately. Now I’d like to discuss a recent study that has gotten less attention, but that I think is far more interesting and useful. However, before I get to the study itself (in the next post), I need to go into some background.
A patient recently brought this study to my attention: as reported in the journal Nature Metabolism, high protein diets apparently lead to heart disease. Or, as the New York Post put it in their headline:
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this is another example of the “Academic-Media Complex” that I often warn about, in which a terribly designed study that tells us nothing about human health is reported on in sensational terms by our “if it bleeds, it leads” media.
Not too long ago, I had a post (link here) about the fact that much of what is published in the medical literature are very poor quality studies, and the symbiotic relationship between academia and the media that hypes these studies up, thus sewing fear and confusion into the average person.
I really can’t stress this point enough. It’s not that most medical studies are good, with a few poor ones thrown in. It’s that a large percentage of what is published and reported on in the news sheds absolutely no light at all on how you can live a healthier life, and is often frankly misleading. So it’s a point worth revisiting over and over.
