Comments on: A Primer on Understanding the Science Behind Health Advice

By: ches

ches — Wed, 13 Jul 2016 16:22:41 +0000

A very sensible piece of writing giving some sound advice to do your own research and how to go about it.
I quite agree that it is difficult to weed out those facts that have just been copied and relayed ad infinitum without any backup. Because of this, I also rely heavily on research papers.

Even so, it is still difficult to know if the researcher has an agenda for the research to go his way. Being completely impartial about the results of research must be very difficult. If you find out that there is a relationship between the researcher/s and a pharmaceutical company, this can always make you question the results, especially if the research is deemed to be ground breaking. Statins come to mind!

Great site and I can see some really useful and well researched info coming from it. Ches

By: Kams

Kams — Wed, 11 Nov 2015 14:45:44 +0000

I love this article. People surfing the net, especially those looking for health advice, really have to be aware of where the information they’re reading is coming from. And being able to do an academic research on your own gives you direct access to the most reliable information. I do a lot of research for my website, it’s about health. and I use Pubmed, but it’s because I’ve got access to it through a university. Another useful source of information that seems more readable than academic journals is EurekAlert. Thank you for the other links, I;ll check them now and bookamrk them for future reference.

By: Tony

Tony — Wed, 28 Oct 2015 14:44:12 +0000

Hi Vince,

I’ve never even thought of doing my own thorough research by looking at scientific papers, great idea!

I certainly was unaware of Google Scholar, so thanks for bringing that to my attention.

What I like about your idea here is that you’re more likely to get somewhere near the truth with better informed facts than, like you say, through the companies who are trying to sell to us.

Do you ever find though that when you read the papers, you end up with more questions than answers, or do they generally leave you satisfied?

Cheers, Tony.