Headlines About Medical Studies May Be More Enthusiastic Than Accurate

•August 15, 2018•

By Trudy Lieberman,
Rural Health News Service

“Lowering Your Blood Pressure Could Stave Off Dementia,” heralded the headline from Bloomberg, which was not alone in delivering the “good” news.
Time advised, “There May Finally Be Something You Can Do to Lower Your Risk of Dementia.”
Reuters’ headline was even more definitive. “Lowering Blood Pressure Cuts Risk of Memory Decline: US Study.”
Readers can be forgiven if they rushed to their doctors to discuss more aggressive blood pressure treatment. Who wouldn’t want to escape the scourge of dementia? But alas, most of the news stories beneath the headlines were as misleading as the headlines themselves.
This column is not intended to give advice on lowering blood pressure. Only doctors do that. Instead its goal is to tell readers that media stories sometimes misrepresent the results from scientific papers presented at medical meetings and how that can sometimes mislead the public. It’s also intended to help readers become more skeptical and cautious when they hear glowing reports about new medical treatments.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.