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Nutrition News Overload–Guidelines on What Not To Believe …Or Vice Versa

Regular readers know that NBN is constantly writing with great distress about poor reporting on supplements and the studies associated with them. It’s like asking your 78-year-old mother what she thinks about the latest I-Pod. She doesn’t know, doesn’t care and doesn’t want to. But reporters should do better, don’t you think.

Well lately some of our friends have told us that their head have been spinning like Linda Blair in The Exorcist. And we have to admit even though we’re nutrition savvy the recent flood of news stories touting the benefits of everything from chocolate, green tea, coffee beans, olive leaf and even ketchup made us step away from the computer to stare out the window while sipping a glass of very fine bourbon. (Knob Creek, to be precise).

That said here are some simple guidelines to remember the next time you read a story touting that something helps prevent cancer, depression or mood swings during PMS. Vitamin and nutritional science is a very young field. Discoveries are happening all the time. The actual impact of these discoveries is often unknown. In other words pretend you’re Galileo and you’ve just discovered these shiny bright objects in the sky. WOW. They’re significant for sure. The meaning of them is uncertain and unfolding every day.

And one more thing: Don’t believe everything you read. For example, a recent study touting the benefits of chocolate paid for by the candy giants from Hershey, Pennsylvania might not be reason to add chocolate bars to your vitamin regimen. Remember that research is simply testing a hypothesis. Research from today sometimes remains true over time, while others, well; lets just say that tests showed that the Titanic was unsinkable.

So keep healthy, and don’t believe everything you read, unless of course you’re reading it here. Okay, that isn’t true either.

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