Today's rant is on a recent study posted on yahoo. In this, another pinnacle of modern research, more validity was given to the presence of chocolate in one's diet. The study followed a group of people who's lifestyles drastically declined along with their consumption of chocolate. Upon delving--something the researches (more likely those who funded the research, probably Nestle) didn't want you to do--you would see that there was a little more than chocolate consumption at hand. First off, the group lived on a rural island that was an agrarian society. This meant that there diet consisted a lot of natural plants and fish and that exercise was a requirement of daily life. The study group that declined in health had moved to an inner city region of a third world country. Living conditions were far from pristine, stress had increased, and they became impoverished. Gee, their health declined. Imagine my surprise. Under the same circumstances I'm certain that you could show smoking benefits lifestyle as well--at least you could if you could somehow get them to not smoke whilst living in squalor.
Even scarier; I've seen this study protocol--rural peoples moving into harsher urban settings--as the base for quite a few studies on controversial ingredients. Go figure.
The lesson for today is to take "studies show" with a grain of salt or, more appropriately, a hefty dose of skepticism.
