Why you shouldn't believe new medical research

This is why you shouldn’t believe that exciting new medical study Julia Belluz , Vox.

Translated by Julia Korowski, XX2 CENTURY

In 2003, The American Journal of Medicine published an article that could change your view of medical news. The authors analyzed 101 studies published in leading scientific journals in 1979-1983. All these works were devoted to new promising methods of treatment and medical technologies. It turned out that only five of them entered the market within ten years. And only one novelty (ACE inhibitors, a class of drugs) actively used at the time of publication.

One.

But you'll never read about it in the press. Take, for example, the recent miraculous operation for the treatment of multiple sclerosis. Multiple sclerosis is an incurable degenerative disease. The immune system of patients attacks the protective shell around the nerve fibers, disrupting the exchange of information between the body and the brain and causing an avalanche of terrible symptoms: movement disorder, loss of vision, loss of control over the bladder and intestines and, eventually, premature death.

In 2009 – a breakthrough: a charming Italian scientist, Dr. Paolo Zamboni (ital. Paolo Zamboni) said that he cured his wife of MS by "freeing" her cervical veins. He suggested that MS is not an autoimmune, but a vascular disease. The paradoxical study gave patients hope, and besides, there was a touching story behind it about a man who tried to save his wife. It was a great bait for journalists, and they proclaimed "liberation therapy" a medical triumph inspired by love (Zamboni called this condition chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency, socr. HCVN or English Chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency, CCSVI, – approx. XX2 CENTURY).

Unfortunately, there was more PR than breakthrough in Zamboni's work. During the romantic adventure, no one noticed the poor design of the experiment and the small sample. Attempts by other scientists to reproduce his results failed. Soon there were stories of complications and relapses.

This is repeated over and over again. Preliminary research promises a miracle. The media is hyping up a sensation. Scientists expose a miracle.

"There is a big, huge difference between how the media and scientists perceive news," Naomi Oreskes, a professor of the history of science at Harvard University, recently told me in an interview. – For you, news is news to tell about new things, so the media tend to chase fundamentally new results. In my opinion, the conclusions from the latest, most recent results are likely to be incorrect."

The results of most medical studies are unreliable

Each study is biased and flawed in its own way - this is a fact. Usually the truth has to be caught in a stream of scientific papers devoted to one issue. This means that real discoveries do not come in the form of miraculous single results or moments of illumination predetermined from above. They are born out of discussions and persistent repetition of experiments. We need to make sure that the conclusions are correct, that they are not the result of chance or the "crusade" of a biased lone scientist.

While science is being sorted out, we, reporters and readers, are grabbing for "promising results". It's so exciting to hear about fundamentally new ideas that are possible-possible! – they will change medicine and put an end to the suffering of people. We are often pushed to do this by well–publicized scientists – such as Zamboni - who need to get funding for research and publish in scientific journals.

We do not wait for a scientific consensus; we report the results a little earlier than we should, and we lead patients and doctors in ruinous and harmful ways that end in broken hopes and ruined medicine.

This trend can be minimized if we only remember that the vast majority of medical research does not meet expectations.

Recently, Forbes science journalist Matthew Harper reviewed a new Vice magazine documentary about "miraculous" cancer cures. Experimental methods of treatment, which the movie tells about, at that moment seemed to be the holy Grail of antitumor therapy, but turned out to be another "revolutionary" pacifiers. Harper's source claims that more than 200 studies have failed in recent years, from which a breakthrough in oncology was expected.

An authoritative service that verifies new scientific papers for clinicians claims that – on average – only 3,000 out of 50,000 articles published annually are thought out and relevant enough that they can be guided in the treatment of patients. This is 6%.

Often isolated studies contradict each other – take, for example, scientific papers on products that cause or prevent the development of cancer. The truth lies in the totality of research, but we write about each one individually, and the headlines today shout one thing, and tomorrow – another. (Red wine prolongs life this week and kills the next).

For a study titled "Does Everything We Eat cause Cancer?" scientists randomly selected 50 ingredients from a Boston Culinary School Textbook. They found articles confirming both the benefits and harms of most products.

Some scientists do not always manage to repeat the results of others, and for various reasons, many do not even try. About 85% of the annual research and development costs – $200 billion – is spent on poorly thought out and unnecessary research.

This means that most of the early studies will be wrong until one day, with luck, the conclusions will not be reliable. And more importantly, only a tiny fraction of new experiments will ultimately benefit humanity.

Dependence on medical sensations is incurable

We live in an era of unprecedented scientific research. Thanks to the Internet, we can access a whole world of knowledge – everything is at our fingertips. But the more information, the more incorrect information, and the stronger the need for skepticism.

I often wonder: does it make sense to write about the earliest research? Today, magazines publish their data, and the public immediately pounces on them, but this was not always the case: magazines were intended for discussion among professionals, not for mass consumption.

In the current system, in which we, reporters, are fed by press releases of scientific journals, it is difficult for us to resist the sweet-voiced singing of spectacular results. We are interested in writing about the new no less than researchers and scientific institutions who need to attract attention to their work. And patients, of course, need the best medicines, the best operations – and hope.

But this cycle harms us, it overshadows really important and reliable scientific works. (Despite the fact that weak early studies were behind the "liberation therapy", patients with multiple sclerosis went to other countries for surgery, organized political movements and demanded funding for clinical trials.)

As for me, I tried to write about new research in context and used systematic reviews – meta–analyses of the best scientific papers - whenever possible. While scientists and media representatives were in a hurry to fan the sensation of a new breakthrough, I explained that there was probably no breakthrough. The more I do this, the more I understand Oreskes from Harvard, John P. A. Ioannidis from Stanford University and many other respected scientists who have been repeating for many years: we should not turn to new research, but to accumulated knowledge. It is there that discoveries are waiting that will help us live a healthy life in a healthy society.

Having stopped chasing magic pills and miraculous healing procedures, we will focus on what is really important for health – education, equality and the environment.

It is not easy to resist the powerful forces that push us "to the forefront". But I'm trying to be careful. I remind myself that most of what I see today is no good and that it is sometimes useful to turn to the past.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru  13.09.2016