Reading a newspaper can be an aggravating experience.
Last week the Associated Press carried a news item with the title “Fat type linked to heart disease.” I thought “Uh-oh.” The implication of the research, the AP article said, was that “people might someday be tested for this fat, just as they are for cholesterol now.” I thought “Here we go again.”
So I looked at the actual research article. It wasn’t about “a type of fat.” It was about oxidized LDL, low density lipoprotein. Oxidized LDL comes from inflammation, free radicals, and other forms of oxidative stress, as well as from a cascade of immune responses to damaged blood vessel walls.
Wouldn’t a better headline have been “Inflammation linked to heart disease?” Yes, but the research article didn’t spell that out. The only implication the journalist could make was to the conventional wisdom on cholesterol.
The AP article itself was not a big deal. What was aggravating was what did and didn’t get into the newspaper and the research article. Journalists draw implications from the research so it will mean something to readers and make their editors happy. Researchers draw implications from their results so it will mean something to their professional peers, funding sources, and promotion committees.
In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq and for quite some time after, the conventional media simply repeated the press releases from the State Department and Pentagon. Journalists now flagellate themselves for being so naïve and for abandoning their independence. Yet as we are reminded almost daily by independent journalists like Amy Goodman, insider journalism still prevails, only wrapped in a cloak of arms-length independence as “responsible journalism.”
Science reporting in the conventional media is not far removed from this kind of insider journalism. The research that is reported is pretty much restricted to what’s published by the conventional science journals and government agencies. The “what’s in it for me” implications of the research that are reported to us are taken from the researcher’s conclusions. Other voices included in the news are typically drawn from the “acknowledged” experts.
As to the researcher’s, the late John Lee was frequently aggravated by conclusions that weren’t supported by the actual research results. And even when the results do support the conclusions, the researchers often miss important implications. As in the case of oxidized LDL.
The role of oxidized LDL in artery disease has been discussed for over 10 years. What was new about this research was that oxidized LDL actually seems to start the whole process of artery damage.
What causes LDL to oxidize? Inflammation, free radicals, oxidative stress. You can do something about that. Not just wait for a new test and a bunch of drugs to go along with it.
