The problem with junk science
Almost a quarter of a century ago, the editor of the
prestigious New England Journal of
Medicine drew attention in an article headlined “What should the public believe?” to the understandable perplexity for many induced by the constant flow of contradictory scientific studies implicating every aspect of daily life in some dire disease or other.
“People substitute margarine for butter, only to learn it may be worse for their arteries. They switch from sugar to saccharine, only to be told it is associated with bladder cancer. The pendulum swings back and forth, generating an ‘epidemic of anxiety’.”
Twenty-five years on, nothing has changed. Two months ago, a senior judge in California ruled that, in the light of recent findings, coffee retailers must display a prominent notice warning customers of its potential to cause cancer. Then, last week, as reported in this paper, a major study involving half a million people found, on the contrary, that drinking six cups of coffee a day is highly beneficial, reducing the risk of dying from any cause. This is junk science, and the public should sensibly believe none of it. Indeed, there are only two lifestyle habits reliably demonstrated to have health implications – both originating from the same source.
Back in the early Fifties, epidemiologist Austin Bradford Hill wrote to the 60,000 doctors on the medical register, asking them to fill in a short questionnaire on how much they smoked and their alcohol consumption.
Forty years later, almost half of those who participated had died, and there is a memorable simplicity to the relevant medical statistics. Those doctors who had reported smoking 20 (or more) cigarettes a day had a 25-fold increase risk of lung cancer compared to nonsmokers.
By contrast, the findings for alcohol consumption were quite different. Here, it emerged that, compared to teetotallers or heavy drinkers, doctors drinking four glasses of wine a day (or its equivalent) not only lived longer, but reduced their risk of a heart attack by almost half. The late distinguished medical commentator Dr Thomas Stuttaford – whose many achievements warranted a fulsome obituary in this paper last month – claimed that “moderate drinkers can expect not just a longer but also a happier life”.
This was particularly so for oldies: “In no age group is the social drink more important. A glass of wine does more good than a whole packet of antidepressants.”
Dr Stuttaford would have been just too young to have participated in Prof Bradford Hill’s landmark study, but his death, aged 87, is ample testimony to those unequivocal findings on the merits of not smoking, but drinking sensibly.
Prolonged yawning
This week’s puzzling medical query comes courtesy of Mr WK from Kent, generally healthy other than requiring a quadruple bypass a couple of years ago.
He finds, however, that within half an hour of setting off on a car journey, he has a prolonged episode of yawning – irrespective of whether he is driving or a passenger – which can last as long as 30 minutes. He wonders whether anyone might know of some antidote for this potentially dangerous complaint?
Protective coating
Finally, the account by the airline pilot inconvenienced by urinary frequency when flying – due, it transpired, to his habit of starting his day with a bowl of porridge – has prompted a reader similarly troubled for the last nine years to report his experience.
The only food he invariably consumes every day is a spoonful of linseed oil for breakfast, which, besides its use as a protective coating for willow cricket bats, is highly regarded for its hearty taste and nutritional properties of a high concentration of omega-3 fatty acids.
“I had no great expectations when I abstained from taking it, but by the third day, my bladder function had returned to normal,” he writes. “I still cannot quite believe it, but hope that this may be of use to others.”
‘Doctors drinking four glasses of wine a day lived longer and reduced their risk of heart attack’