Opposing Digits

In the world of health news, I'm not sure who's worse: Dishonest researchers or illiterate science reporters. But in this case -- lucky us -- we get both. The issue surrounds the reporting of a recent study on calcium supplements in post-menopausal women conducted by the Women's Health Initiative (WHI), a U.S. government program. According to practically everybody in the mainstream press, the study shows little or no benefit of taking calcium supplements. Here's a sampling of the headlines you may have seen in the popular press:

• No broad benefit from calcium found for women
  - San Jose Mercury News
  
  
• Back to milk: Few benefits found from calcium pills
  - International Herald Tribune
  
  
• Study Shows Limited Benefits From Calcium
  - Houston Chronicle
  
  
• Studies Question Benefits Of Calcium, Vitamin D
  - CBS (affiliate, California)

Anyone who actually reads the study, however, learns that calcium was shown to produce a whopping 29% reduction in bone fractures for those actually taking the pills. That's a huge reduction in risk that would be called a "breakthrough" if it were attributed to a drug.

So how did the mainstream media miss the boat on this one? Simple: They just parroted the conclusions of conventional medicine, which conveniently average in all the results of people who did NOT take the calcium supplements during the study. Huh? Yes, they counted the results of all the people who didn't take the calcium supplements, and then declared that calcium itself is useless.

# posted by madthumbs @ 7:11 AM