Medical News is Often Not-So-New

In looking through the journals and news feeds for something that might interest you, I find that many stories described as ‘news” or “breakthroughs” have been reported some months earlier (often by me). Here are examples.

Chewing gum has just been shown in a meta-analysis to improve the function of the intestines after colon surgery – the results were published in this August’s Archives of Surgery. We posted the results of the first published study of this use of gum in 2006.

‘Fat but fit’ – we summarized the results of the most recent studies earlier this month, but in 2007 the Journal of the American Medical Association had published a study showing that mortality was related more to lack of physical fitness than to obesity. It’s not only possible, it’s positively advantageous to be fit even though fat, compared with the alternative – thin but unfit.

These are just two examples of health headline news that is not unexpected, in view of previous data. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing to report the later studies, however. They represent confirmation of the original findings – something that good scientists (and skeptical patients) welcome. First, many ‘breakthroughs’ concerning new treatments or medications fail to be confirmed in subsequent studies. Second, in the case of confirmatory studies, it’s helpful to repeat the story; the public are notoriously forgetful.