Why does this matter?

Every day we hear conflicting evidence about health and nutrition. Vaccines cause autism. Chocolate will benefit pregnant women. Chewing gum will decrease appetite. Some of these claims, like the vaccine one, are just false or outright wrong; more insidious is distorted research. How can you spot this and why does it matter?

When the information you get about the latest movie is wrong, you're only out a couple of hours and $10-15. When you get the wrong health information, it has immense personal, policy, and societal consequences.

The rest of this tutorial will help you spot good evidence amongst all the wild claims and fake news out there.

Researching controversial nutrition topics

Science News Cycle starts with your research which is translated by your university PR office which then picked up by news wire services which then gets picked up by the internets and cable news and then caught on TV news which eventually makes it to your grandma

Science News Cycle by Jorge Cham, PhD Comics

VIDEO: Scientific Studies (John Oliver, Last Week Tonight)

GRAPHIC: Everything we eat both causes and prevents cancer

Everything we eat both causes and prevents cancer-graphic shows the wide distribution of studies that indicate that various foods and drinks (e.g. wine, tomatoes, tea, etc) either cause or prevent cancer

-in This is why you shouldn't believe that exciting new medical study, based on data from Schoenfeld, J.D. & Ioannidis, J.P.A. (2013). "Is everything we eat associated with cancer: A systematic cookbook review." American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 97(1), 127-134.