Sponsored by www.GREENBEAN-STORE.com

_____________

The Top 10 Unfounded Health Scares of 2008

*by American Council on Science and Health

Introduction
The core mission of the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) since its founding in 1978 has been to counter misleading and alarmist health news in print, broadcast, and online media. In a classic ACSH publication, Facts Versus Fears: A Review of the Greatest Unfounded Health Scares of Recent Times, ACSH evaluated 27 of the greatest health scares of modern times, reviewing the basis of each, describing their presentation in the media, and presenting scientifically accurate information on each topic. Our current publication, The Top Ten Unfounded Health Scares of 2008, is organized along similar lines.

Unfortunately, old scares seem neither to die nor to fade away—some of the ones that garnered media attention in 2008 are replays of earlier scares with new twists. Once again we see alarmist groups exploiting the understandable desire of parents to protect their children by trumpeting hyperbole about the supposed dangers in toys, baby bottles, and sippy cups. But these fears are based on finding trace amounts of theoretically toxic chemicals in these items and completely ignore the toxicological principle that it’s the dose that makes the poison.

Some of the scares in the following list are based on incomplete research—that is, on studies presented at scientific meetings—rather than on published articles in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. Thus, their findings are subject to revision and surely should not be taken as the final word on a subject. Further, there is a tendency to see the finding of a correlation between the presence of a substance and a negative health outcome to mean the substance causes the outcome. But as we have explained, this is not necessarily true.

Yet another fallacy is to assume that the results of rodent studies can be directly applied to humans, which is not true, as ACSH has repeatedly explained.

The following list of scares is meant to reassure Americans that our health and well-being, and that of our children, is not really under attack by insidious exposures to disease-causing chemicals.

…

4. Coffee shrinks breasts

The (Unfounded) Scare: Drinking three or more cups of coffee a day will cause a woman’s breasts to shrink—but may help lower her risk of breast cancer.

Origin of the Scare: Researchers from Sweden’s Lund University surveyed about 300 women about their bust measurements and their average daily coffee consumption. They claimed to find a clear link between drinking coffee and having smaller breasts, with the effect starting at three cups of coffee a day and increasing for every additional cup consumed daily. They also alleged that regular caffeine consumption might reduce the risk of breast cancer.

Media Coverage: Fox News picked up the story under the headline “Study: 3 Cups of Coffee a Day May Shrink Women’s Breasts.” The article quoted Helena Jernström, a lecturer in experimental oncology at Lund University, as saying, “Coffee-drinking women do not have to worry their breasts will shrink to nothing overnight. They will get smaller, but the breasts aren’t just going to disappear.”

The study was clarified somewhat in the McGill Daily—a college newspaper with limited circulation, unfortunately. The author explains, “an increased intake of caffeinated coffee in young women who are not on birth control, but are carriers of the alternative gene variation of CYP1A2 for an enzyme that metabolizes both caffeine and estrogen, have exhibited smaller breast size. But this makes for a less snappy headline.”

She also includes a less-inflammatory quote from Jernström: “[W]e don’t yet know whether coffee actually shrinks the breasts or if these women had smaller breasts anyway….It is too early to draw any conclusions.”

ACSH’s Perspective: We covered this scare in October 24’s Morning Dispatch and found it so absurd that we gave it ACSH’s first “Bust Award.” ACSH’s Dr. Elizabeth Whelan called it “a perfect example of junk reporting fueled by science.” ACSH’s Jeff Stier agreed, adding “Usually a story like this includes one reasonable voice questioning the study’s results, but not this one” (referring to the Fox News article).

ACSH’s Dr. Ruth Kava pointed out what Jernström only explained in her less-publicized interview: “There’s no way researchers could have found a causal link from the way the study was conducted,” she said.

The Bottom Line: While coffee is an easy target for health scares, there is no evidence that it has any effect on either breast size or the risk of developing breast cancer.

…

*Source: http://www.acsh.org/publications/pubID.1751/pub_detail.asp

Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it, about it, and subscribe to the blog RSS feed.

Related posts:

1. Concerned about coffee? It may actually be good for you! Because it tastes so good, you may assume coffee is bad for you. Maybe you've...
2. Green Tea: Mixed Reviews for Cancer Prevention Lifestyle choices are pieces of the cancer prevention puzzle, but exactly which steps to take...
3. Coffee: the daily superdrink Coffee has been in the news as being a good-for-you and bad-for-you substance, and nobody...
4. Turns out the coffee bean can be a lean, mean, health-boosting machine Turns out caffeine, a naturally occurring, flavorless chemical that stimulates the central nervous system, does...
5. Coffee a Health Super-Drink? Coffee is a part of most people's daily routines, but there are so many roasts...