The BMJ: The association between exaggeration in health related science news and academic press releases: retrospective observational study

An early Christmas gift. Image by Me (CC BY-NC-ND)

Every December The British Medical Journal releases its holiday edition where fluffy light-hearted research that scientists do just for fun or personal curiosity gets to see the light of day. Today's article was something of a surprise gift from the Red Man himself to my blog. I must have been a good blogger this year!

The goal of this research was to identify where distortions, exaggerations, and changes to research conclusions as presented in media come from: research --> press release or press release --> news story? For example how did research showing that when a female Telostylinus angusticllis fly mates with two males, most of her offspring will inherit genes from the second male, but may inherit adult body size from the first male (suggesting some non-genetic mechanism of inheritance: possibly hormones in the semen) turn into this news story? Which heavily implies that your baby--your human baby--might look like the guy you lost your virginity to instead of your husband/baby-daddy. It's only several paragraphs down that they admit this research was done on flies and might does not have anything to do with humans. Jezebel has a nice not-too-technical explanation of the research if you're interested. But again, why does this happen? And whose fault is it? This is what researchers wanted to know.

Fox: Nearly Half of Americans Think Flu Shot Can Make You Sick

Colorized transmission electron micrograph of
Avian influenza A H5N1 viruses (seen in gold)
Image from Cynthia Goldsmith at the CDC

Is it just me or does there need to be a "[sic]" in the title of today's post? I'm pretty sure it should read "...Think the Flu Shot..." but either way, today's article comes from Fox News. It shares the findings of a study published earlier this week in the journal Vaccine about how sharing information with patients affects their willingness to get their annual flu shot.

According to Fox, researchers found that 40% of adult Americans believe that the flu vaccine can give you the flu, and that explaining to patients that this is a myth is not as effective as researchers expected it to be. The researchers polled 1,000 people about their perception of the dangers of flu shots, then they gave some people information about flu shots, some information about the flu, or no new information (control). In addition to the finding regarding belief that the flu shot could give you the flu, they found that the participants who had initially believed the flu shot to be the most dangerous were actually more convinced of their position after reading the information about the flu shot's safety. The flu kills many people every year, and the annual vaccine is the best protection we've been able to develop. So then the question is, what should a health care professional say to some one who is worried about the safety of the flu shot?

Science World Report: New, Promising Compound Eliminates Malaria Parasites in Only Two Days

Malaria parasites infecting a red blood cell. Image from CDC.

Today's article comes from Science World Report; it's about the findings of a research paper just published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences regarding a potential new drug for the treatment of malaria. They found that treating the malaria parasites with a compound named (+)-SJ733 caused the parasites to be unable to hide from the infected host's immune system. This resulted in rapid recovery from infection.

According to the news article, the new potential drug allows the immune system to clear 80% of the parasites from the body in 24 hours, and all of them by 48 hours from the beginning of treatment. Given these promising results researchers are working to begin safety trials in humans and are hoping that within the next few years this drug will prove safe, effective, and relatively inexpensive. If so this will be a big advance for the treatment of malaria, which is currently problematic due to the high rate of dangerous side-effects and the evolution of drug resistant strains of malaria.

CNN: Eating the Mediterranean Diet May Lead to a Longer Life

The Mediterranean Sea from Cap Bon in Tunisia. Image from Wikimedia

Today's article comes from CNN; it is about the findings of a new study published in the British Medical Journal. In this study researchers investigated the association between telomere length and adherence to a "Mediterranean" diet. They found that middle age women who ate diets more similar to the Mediterranean diet had longer telomeres than women the same age who ate a more standard American diet.
The news piece and the research article both state that this pattern was only seen when the diet as a whole was considered, no single component of the diet (such as moderate wine intake) was statistically correlated with longer telomeres. These telomeres, it's important to note, are considered to be markers of cellular/metabolic age; shorter telomeres are associated with several diseases of aging. But does the data really show that we can protect our telomeres, and thus our youthful health, by eating more like the Greeks?

USA Today: 5 Facts about HIV on World AIDS Day.

Red Ribbon for AIDS Awareness

Today is not just Cyber Monday, today is also World AIDS day. A day for awareness of the continuing threat the disease poses to people all around the world. Today's article, from USA Today, is one of many that has come out today to help remind and educate people about HIV and AIDS.

The five facts today's article shares are that 34 million people world wide are HIV positive--with 1.2 million of those living in the US, 70% of new HIV cases occur in Sub-Saharan Africa, the rate of new infections in the US is down to about 50,000 per year from a height of 130,000 per year in the 1980s, advances in anti-retroviral treatments means that many people can live relatively normal lives after an HIV diagnoses even though there is still no cure, and though the death rate due to AIDS has dropped overall teens are still dying of AIDS at the same rate they were in 2005.

For my contribution to spreading awareness and understanding about AIDS, I would like to look into that last fact in more detail. What has research shown to be the cause of the consistent high death rate of HIV+ teens in spite of the dropping death rate overall?

CBS: New Research Says The Best Place To Have A Heart Attack Is Not In A Hospital

An overview of a heart and coronary artery showing damage
(dead heart muscle) caused by a heart attack.
Image from NIH via Wikimedia

Today's article comes from CBS; it is about the findings of a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. In this study researchers investigated the death rate from a specific type of major heart attack. They found that heat attack victims who were already in the hospital were less likely to survive than those who arrived at the ER. The news piece and the research article both state that this pattern persisted even when the difference in health of the patients was taken into account (people in the hospital are, on average, sicker than those not in the hospital). But does the data really show that you're better off having your heart attack at home?

Entropy: Glyphosate’s Suppression of Cytochrome P450 Enzymes and Amino Acid Biosynthesis by the Gut Microbiome: Pathways to Modern Diseases

This is relevant, I promise. Image from xkcd.com

I've chosen this journal article because I saw some blog posts about it spreading around Facebook recently, though I think this all started back in February. I am not going to dignify these blog posts with link backs. I will, however, summarize the contents; if you want to find the original post I'm sure you won't have any trouble.

The other reason I chose this article is that this is, in a way, a topic near to my heart. My PhD thesis was on spreading glyphosate resistance in the agricultural pest Amaranth. All that time in the lab left me with a lot of expertise to share regarding glyphosates biochemistry and utilization, and also with the distinct idea that agriculture is both really important to human health and a really misunderstood science (by the general public, I mean). People all over the internet are talking about GMOs and Monsanto, but there seems to be a lot more hysteria than science. I'd like to see that start to change. Starting with this: is there research showing that there are negative health effects for humans from the consumption of crops treated with glyphosate?

Friday Fluff: Lies, D@mned Lies, and Statistics

Image from xkcd.com

This is going to be a less-fluffy-than-normal bit of fluff, but today I am introducing my new statistics page on my blog. If you look up near the title of the blog you'll see two new tabs. Home takes you to where you can see my blog posts as before. Statistics take you to the new page.


A big part of the reason I started this blog was because I think it's important that every day people understand what researchers are up to. I think this is important for many reasons. Our tax dollars support a lot of this work, we should understand what we're buying. This work has the potential to help us better understand ourselves and the world around us--that's what gets scientists out of bed in the morning--and that knowledge shouldn't be locked away in an ivory tower. And, of course, sometimes the media picks up stories about new research and mangles them. This is bad for everyone: the researchers are made to look silly, and the public is misinformed. Knowledge is power. Power to the people. That sort of thing.

Blinded me with Science: Aerobic Exercise and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

One teacher, one scientist, and one paper; but how many conclusions?

Today's post is a little bit different, but this type of post will hopefully become a semi-regular thing. I'm cross-posting with Sara-Liz. She is one of my favorite people; she stood up with me at my wedding. More relevant to the science part of this blog, she is a special education teacher with both personal and professional experience in learning disabilities. She has a masters degree from Clemson in Special Education and is currently pursuing a second masters degree in Educational Administration and Leadership. This background gives her unique insight on child development, teacher practices, and special education from the education policy and teacher interaction with kiddos perspective.

There's no news article associated with today's post; I found this research by serendipity. I was looking for the article I reviewed last week and while searching Google scholar this one came up. It looked like an interesting and potentially important bit of research as I know many families struggling with ADHD (either in the kids or the adults). I also knew that this would be a great article to seek input from Sara-Liz about. Sara-Liz's content and comments are in purple; mine are in black.

Fox: Laundry Pods Pose Serious Poisoning Risk to Young Children, Study Finds

A sample size package of Tide Pods free & gentle.
Image by Me (CC BY-NC-ND)

Today's article is from Fox news, and there is also a very similar article published in the NY Times (Detergent Pods Pose Risk to Children, Study Finds). Both of these articles share the findings of a new study released today in the journal of Pediatrics. The basic message is one that has been on the news several times in the last two years or so: the new colorful and convenient laundry pods are very dangerous to small children. I want to take a closer look at the statistics presented so that we can better understand how big a risk these are to children. Are laundry pods a major concern or is the media fueling needless paranoia and creating a new battle field in the "mommy wars"?

The Washington Post: Red wine’s heralded ingredient — resveratrol — may actually hinder benefits of exercise

Maybe not the best replacement to an after workout protein shake.
Image from Lance Cpl. J. Gage Karwick via Wikimedia Commons.

Today's news article comes to us from the Washington Post. Most of the news about the potential anti-aging benefits of red wine, via an antioxidant called resveratrol, was coming out in late 2007 and again in mid-2009 (google trends). But now it's back in the news because researchers have published the results of a study to see if resveratrol can increase the aerobic capacity of humans in the journal Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism. According to the Washington Post, the answer is no, and they use this as an example of how it can feel like research reverses itself constantly, particularly with health and nutrition. But is that really fair?

BBC News: Weight Surgery Lowers Diabetes Risk

Eight obese women (each have a BMI of 30) with different
distributions of that weight and different waist sizes.
Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Today's article, published BBC, is about a paper just published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology that investigates the incidence rate of type 2 diabetes (T2D) in individuals who have undergone bariatric (weight loss) surgery. The news article is very brief, and states simply that researchers found an 80% reduction in the risk of T2D in individuals who have had weight loss surgery. The article also tells us that the UK NHS (their universal health insurer) is considering expanding the availability of covered weight loss surgery based on these findings. Let's see what the paper's authors actually say; does this new research show that bariatric surgery is a viable intervention to prevent or cure T2D?

Nature News: HIV Vaccine Raised Infection Risk

Or, What Several Failed HIV Vaccine Studies Can Teach Us about the Risks of the Planned Phase III Ebola Vaccine Study.

 

HIV infecting a human T cell. From NIH via Wikimedia commons

Last week I wanted to start an informed discussion about the complications involved in the plan to begin phase 3 trials of at least two Ebola vaccines in response to the current pandemic in west Africa. Particularly regarding the study design, should a control group (who receives inactive placebo shots) be included, or not? As part of my attempt to explain the considerations I mentioned the story of the failed HIV vaccine trials, but I did not go into any detail, as the post was about Ebola and not HIV. I have decided that was a mistake. So today I will tell you about the HIV vaccine trials, as understanding what went wrong has the potential to teach us a lot about how to go forward with both new HIV vaccines and the Ebola vaccine trials scheduled to start early 2015. The news article we are starting with comes from the news desk of the scientific journal Nature, as Nature is edited by scientists for scientists I'm confident in the quality of it's science journalism, this post will focus on breaking down the story they've told.

Medpage Today: Enterovirus infection linked to type 1 diabetes in children?

An insulin pump. Image from Wikimedia Commons

Today's article, published in Medpage Today, is from a few days ago; it is about a paper just published in Diabetologia that shows a possible link between Enteroviruses and type 1 diabetes. Enterovirus has been in the news lately because the US has been suffering an outbreak of EV-D68 since August, putting many children in the hospital. Seven children have died. EV-D68 a nasty virus, a distant cousin of Polio, that causes a respiratory infection with coughing, wheezing, and fever in children. In rare cases the infection causes paralysis, much like Polio. EV-D68, Polio, and Coxsackie A virus, which causes Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease, are all specific types of Enteroviruses. Does this new research show that in addition to respiratory disease and possible paralysis that this viruses cause diabetes?

NY times: Testing for Ebola Vaccines to Start Soon, W.H.O. Says

Ebola virus. Image from Thomas W. Geisbert via WikiMedia Commons

Everyone is very worried about Ebola right now, so it seems like a good choice of topic. The news story I'm going to talk about is from today's NY Times, Testing for Ebola Vaccines to Start Soon, W.H.O. Says.