Skip to content

References: Be Your Own Scientist: Reading Health Claims

  1. Checklist for Understanding Health News Stories - National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), NIH - A short, printable list of questions to ask about any health news story, including whether the study was in people or animals, how many took part, whether it's a first-time finding, and who funded it. A good companion to the six claim questions.

  2. How To Make Sense of a Scientific Journal Article - NCCIH, NIH - A free interactive guide to the parts of a scientific paper (abstract, methods, results, discussion) and the main types of research, from basic lab work to clinical trials and systematic reviews. Supports Sections 20.3 and 20.11.

  3. Health Products Compliance Guidance - US Federal Trade Commission, December 2022 - The FTC's guidance on what evidence health ads need. It explains why randomized human trials are usually expected and why testimonials never count as proof. Written for businesses, but the examples are readable.

  4. Structure/Function Claims - US Food and Drug Administration - Explains what supplement labels may claim without FDA approval, why they need a disclaimer, and why only drugs can claim to treat or cure a disease. Source for Section 20.10.

  5. About medRxiv - medRxiv, the preprint server for health sciences - Describes what preprints are and includes the server's own warning that preprints haven't been peer reviewed and shouldn't guide health decisions.

  6. ASA Statement on Statistical Significance and P-Values (press release) - American Statistical Association, March 7, 2016 - Lists the six principles for using p-values, including that statistical significance doesn't measure the size or importance of an effect. Short and clear.

  7. Translating animal research into clinical benefit - Hackam DG. BMJ, 2007 - A free editorial explaining why only about one in three highly cited animal studies were later confirmed in human trials, and what makes animal research more likely to translate.

  8. Establishing or Exaggerating Causality for the Gut Microbiome: Lessons from Human Microbiota-Associated Rodents - Walter J, Armet AM, Finlay BB, Shanahan F. Cell, 2020 - A review warning that 95% of studies moving human gut microbes into germ-free rodents reported disease transfer, a rate the authors call implausible. Useful for anyone judging microbiome headlines.

  9. The preregistration revolution - Nosek BA, Ebersole CR, DeHaven AC, Mellor DT. PNAS, 2018 - Explains the difference between testing predictions and explaining results after the fact, and why recording plans in advance makes research more credible.

  10. Industry sponsorship and research outcome - Lundh A, Lexchin J, Mintzes B, Schroll JB, Bero L. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2017 - A review of 75 papers finding that studies sponsored by a product's maker more often report favorable results and conclusions. The plain-language summary is worth reading.

  11. SER-109, an Oral Microbiome Therapy for Recurrent Clostridioides difficile Infection - Feuerstadt P, et al. New England Journal of Medicine, 2022 - The ECOSPOR III trial analyzed in this chapter's claim box and data question. Its abstract is a model of what to look for: design, group numbers, relative risk, funder, and registration number.

  12. New evidence pyramid - Murad MH, Asi N, Alsawas M, Alahdab F. Evidence-Based Medicine, 2016 - Proposes a revised hierarchy of evidence in which systematic reviews act as a lens for viewing other studies rather than simply sitting on top. Supports Section 20.3.