Hello there and welcome to the Nutrition Diva podcast. I'm your host Monica Reinegel and

this is the final episode of 2022 and I'd like to take this opportunity to reflect a little

bit on how we in the health media communicate about topics and trends and research that

we cover and why this matters. One of the challenges that I face in covering nutrition

science is putting breaking news into a larger context so that you can put it in perspective.

Despite the tendency to position every new development as a breakthrough or a game-changer,

the truth is that nutrition science and really most science moves incrementally. New findings

may add more data points that confirm a prevailing hypothesis or just as often the results of an

experiment or a new analysis require us to re-examine or refine our previous conclusions.

So if you're someone who likes absolute certainty, cut and dried conclusions, and unambiguous

outcomes, you're likely to find nutrition science somewhat frustrating. Contributing to this

is the role that the media play now in the scientific process because these days,

experimental results aren't just published in scientific journals for other scientists to question

and build upon, they are also fodder for our insatiable information economy. As a result,

a lot of things end up in the news, not to mention on drugstore shelves, before they are really

settled science. Scientific research is expensive and as a society, we seem to have less appetite

for funding it solely for the purpose of expanding human knowledge. We want it to yield products

and services that make our lives better and provide some sort of concrete return on that investment.

Increasingly, academics and researchers have a mandate to translate their work more quickly

into practical applications that benefit human health, not to mention the bottom line.

One result of this pressure is the sensationalization of research results. Everything from press releases

that exaggerate findings to popular books that sacrifice subtlety in a bid to land on the best

...