Health-guru podcasters simplify complex data and sell it as guaranteed health advice. For more latest health news, you may learn more here.
Notice it tends to be surprising (maybe ironic), simple, and “natural.”
Some examples:
- Walking around on your heels for 5 minutes before bed will cure restless leg syndrome.
- The scent of freshly-crushed black pepper will get rid of your afternoon sleepiness.
- Looking at bright outdoor sunlight after a meal will stop your body from storing adipose fat.
Of course, I made all of those up. Maybe they’re true. No idea.
We all fall for this stuff because stories are more fun than statistics.*
I’m not here to say “studies don’t mean anything” or “science isn’t real.”
But here are two problems with throwing that stuff around:
1. The actual numbers get left out, which might not be impressive. (How many? For how long? What percentage?)
2. Something might be true for a group, but not for the individuals in that group. (Ecological Fallacy).
A silly example ChatGPT made up for me:
A team of researchers at the University of Sleep Sciences and Decorative Vegetables recruited 1,000 adults suffering from mild insomnia. Half were given a standard pillow, while the other half slept on a pillow stuffed entirely with shredded cabbage.
The results:
On average, the cabbage pillow group fell asleep 4 minutes faster than the standard pillow group.
Within the cabbage group:
15% fell asleep 20+ minutes faster
60% showed no change at all
25% reported worse sleep, citing “constant salad smell” and “dreams about rabbits”The press release headline:
“Cabbage Pillows Proven to Improve Sleep!”
But 85% of the time, in this fictional example, there was no effect — or it made the problem worse.
Buying a Cabbage Pillow™ probably won’t work.
Oh, well. This will continue. Few of us are trained to parse a scientific paper (I sure as hell am not). Statistics and details are easy to forget. And “health influencers” are incentivized to spread pop song versions of results.
*A reference to something Pete Peterson typed:
