The Data Game

...People know enough to be suspicious of some numbers in some contexts, but we are at the mercy of others...

...Two scientists talk about a man who has just been roused from a 200-year sleep...

...You can never prove a negative," said George E. Boecklin, president of the National Coffee Association of U.S.A., the industry's trade group, which has certainly done its best, financing and publicizing studies that acquit coffee of all serious crimes...

...Too, coffee is not just caffeine...

...The media, which can usually get the raw numbers if they want them, are stingy with data because data are boring, and many journalists are themselves innumerate...

...The coffee industry is incredibly powerful," said Dr...

...While most people would not rush out to take an experimental drug after one small study demonstrated its effectiveness, vast numbers of people will eat or not eat a food based on a single study...

...Usually associations that sponsor research have a fairly good idea what the outcome will be," said Joseph Hotchkiss of Cornell University...

...The research is done by respected institutions that are given "no strings attached" grants, Boecklin said...

...Eight...

...Studies found the opposite...

...The subjects were all men, and all but seven were white...

...But there is much scientists do not know...

...Even relatively lucid scientific studies contain lines like "The final analysis was based on a 'pre protocol' basis since the study objective was to test a dose-response relationship of B-glucan on serum lipids...

...Robert Superko, who did some coffee research at Stanford University...

...So how can scientists ever know whether the thing that is killing people is the coffee or the doughnuts...

...For most people, coffee stimulates the nervous system, makes their muscles more resilient, and gives them a heady feeling of concentration and power...

...Surely wine, cigarettes, and pate are harmful to your health...

...Yet even forums like these have been slow to recognize how dubious is much of the research they publish...

...If a study contradicts another study's position, buyers of research can simply commission more studies...

...Food Fights It is almost impossible for average consumers to sort through studies like these and know what they should be eating and drinking...

...Coffee Talk There is probably no food on earth that has been as widely studied to so little effect as caffeine, the world's most popular drug...

...Woody Allen's futuristic fantasy notwithstanding, it is unquestionably true that more fruits and vegetables and less animal fat than Americans typically eat is good...

...That is why studies have become such a big part of the food business...

...The report, released at a widely covered news conference in September 1992, cited a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine about milk contributing to juvenile diabetes...

...Even dietiti-cians who have been subjects of nutritional studies say they are tempted to lie about the steak, potato chips, or ice cream they ate in private...

...People who drink coffee also tend to have other health habits that may cause the problems blamed on coffee...

...For breakfast, he requested something called wheat germ, organic honey, and tiger's milk...

...His study was published on February 12, 1992, in the Journal of the American Medical Association...

...Consider these surprises of recent years: • "Milk is the number one health hazard facing young children," wrote a Santa Rosa, California, doctor in support of a new report by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine...

...Hundreds of studies have exonerated coffee...

...Yet beyond some broad strokes of knowledge, there is little agreement about how coffee, oat bran, margarine, wine, and nuts, just to name a few, affect human bodies...

...Independent often just means there are many paying clients instead of one...

...Coffee's 'Perk-me-up' Effect Confirmed in Study...

...But unlike rats, people cannot be forced to do what they are supposed to do, and some of them lie about it...

...The only reason the association gets involved in financing research, he continued, is because otherwise it would look as though it had its "head in the sand...

...But the silver lining was that both their "good" and "bad" cholesterol levels seemed to have risen, canceling out any significantly increased risk of heart disease...

...controlled for diet, exercise and smoking, all known contributing factors for heart disease...

...Such guileless enthusiasm for each coffee study is one reason scientists love to work on caffeine...

...During the cholesterol mania of the 1980s, for example, many researchers turned their attention to the subject of coffee and cholesterol...

...Despite thousands of studies on coffee's effects on virtually every organ in the body, scientists still cannot completely rule out links to heart disease, cancer, infertility, breast cysts, and a dozen other maladies...

...In 1981, industry contributed $292 million to schools for research...

...Progress stalls...

...However complex and compromised, food research commands an astonishing loyalty from consumers, resulting in alarming shifts of behavior from study to study...

...Coffee is off the hook again," said the Phoenix Gazette...

...To study long-term effects of a food, especially on diseases that can take decades to develop, like cancer, scientists need 20 years...

...And industry financing, said Superko, "indeed affects the way you publish the results...

...Once you get on their bad side, they have a very heavy hammer...

...Some earlier studies had suggested a link between heart disease and coffee, but just what that link was remained a mystery...

...hundreds have damned it...

...For example: If there were two things about food that we knew for sure, it was that milk was good for children and chocolate was bad...

...The 118 subjects were divided into four groups...

...We should not allow our own silence to be one of the reasons why things stay the same...

...Those were thought to be unhealthy, precisely the opposite of what we now know to be true...

...Some people can smoke a pack a day and live to 100...

...It is brewed in different ways—boiling, dripping, percolating...

...drink four cups of decaffeinated coffee a day...

...One Food and Drug Administration study showed that when pregnant rats were fed the equivalent of 56 to 87 cups of strong coffee at one time, some of the offsprings' toes were deformed or missing...

...Like people, no two pots of coffee are exactly alike...

...A study showed apples cause cancer...

...It is time to reclaim our numbers, our truth...

...and drink no coffee at all...

...Reprinted with permission...

...White bread will not make you gain weight and, when used in a high-fiber diet, is an okay nutritional choice, reported the Cooper Institute for Aerobic Research...

...For whatever reason, coffee is associated with risk taking, at least where health is concerned...

...Research about food has contributed many truths to the world, resulting in longer, healthier lives for those who follow its path...

...Although the only positive result of the study was that coffee increased cholesterol, both the coffee association and the media found the negative results more interesting: "Study Refutes Link Between Coffee, High Cholesterol," said the Minneapolis Star...

...Most members of the media are ill-equipped to judge a technical study...

...The group also published reports of a study about how sticky snacks like caramel actually dissolve faster than starchy foods like potato chips...

...Then the men were randomly assigned to one of four groups: Drink four cups (24 ounces) of regular coffee a day...

...If the results of the research contradict the sponsor's agenda, they will routinely be suppressed...

...Human beings would be perfect subjects for research on human health...

...Adapted from the forthcoming book Tainted Truth, to be published by Simon and Schuster Inc...

...The research: inconclusive, to say the least...

...Meanwhile, the coffee association's fact sheet said: "Most studies involving U.S.-style filter-brewed coffee, including the 1992 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, have not found the association between . . . coffee and increased risk of cholesterol-related heart disease...

...Despite its vaguely neutral name, the committee is actually a pressure group of mostly vegetarians who oppose animal research and support animal welfare groups...

...Several times a year, a new study about the effects of caffeine, usually studied in the form of coffee, is published to great media fanfare...

...The coffee industry puts pressure on you to do it their way...

...The study was reported by the Associated Press...

...Copyright © by Cynthia Crossen...

...The tacit acceptance of untruth in daily life eats away at belief in right and wrong...

...So widely consumed is the addictive drug that if even a tiny association between it and disease was established, many lives could be saved and scientific careers made...

...Apple a day...

...In fact, the more the study defies common wisdom, the more likely it is to enjoy wide acclaim...

...Yet more and more of the information we use to buy, elect, advise, acquit, and heal has been created not to expand our knowledge but to sell a product or advance a cause...

...No, says a study...

...We should call the advertisers phonies, or bullshitters, or harassers, when we think that's what they are...

...The theory is that if the companies may profit from the research, and they often do, the companies should pay for it...

...We usually would not take too seriously a claim by the maker of Quick 'n Crispy Crinkle Cut Fries that "In a nationwide taste test, you preferred the crispiness of Quick 'n Crispy Crinkle Cut Fries, 3 to 1." Similarly, when the National Examiner publishes a story saying, "You can slash your cholesterol level [as much as 30 percent], strengthen your heart and add years to your life with a daily can of 7-Up," many people would, rightly, not stop taking their cholesterol medication...

...The National Coffee Association is an active player in the caffeine study game...

...Fried, then a research fellow at Johns Hopkins, received more than $200,000 from the coffee association to do his study...

...They cannot be absolutely certain the new studies will confirm their position, but they know the researchers whose labs have produced agreeable results...

...George Boecklin of the coffee association said that is not true...

...As each new study arrives, newspapers and airwaves crackle with an excitement usually associated with major news events: "Caffeine Not Harmful to Health...

...Fried's study was far from conclusive, however...

...Numbers bring a sense of rationality to complex decisions—the ones we used to make with common sense, experience, and intelligence...

...So what is to be done...

...Roy Fried's proposal won the financing...

...Its sponsor for the study: the makers of Wonder Bread...

...Studies on substances strongly suspected of being killers are even tougher to analyze...

...If nothing is true, how can one solution be better than another...

...The association invited several experts in the field of cholesterol and clinical trials to submit proposals for a study on the subject...

...Chocolate may actually prevent cavities, reported a newsletter from the Princeton Resource Center, citing a study about how tannins in cocoa inhibit plaque formation...

...But they find coffee addicts reluctant to give up their drug for 20 years for the sake of science...

...There is no truth about food so sacred that it cannot be challenged by research...

...them...

...Six ounces...

...Incredible...

...For years, whole wheat bread was thought to be better than white...

...Nevertheless, we respect numbers, and we cannot help believing Cynthia Crossen is a writer and editor at The Wall Street Journal...

...The studies, which are often reported as though they are the first and last word on the subject, are in fact absurdly contradictory and would be funny if the media and consumers did not embrace them so fervently...

...and the maximum amount of coffee anyone drank was four cups a day, while many other studies tested more than four cups a day...

...Superko believes the industry shapes coffee research by choosing which studies to fund partly based on its hopes, rather than scrutinizing the study design with a cool, objective eye...

...Turning any one of them a notch, even well within ethical limits, will dramatically change the outcome of the study...

...After having put out brushfires over cancer, birth defects and heart disease, the coffee association was clearly worried about this new threat to the already depressed coffee business...

...State and federal government financing for colleges and universities to do research and development has flattened in recent years, while the amount of financing from industry has increased dramatically...

...when those few are exposed to it, they die...

...Others have never picked up a cigarette but die of lung cancer at 30...

...Ask a thousand men and women what they ate yesterday, and the answers will be inaccurate blends of what they should, could, and would have eaten...

...Fried and his fellow researchers first asked 100 male subjects to give up coffee for eight weeks to wash out their systems...

...To further complicate the picture, every human being is different...

...Human studies involving some 15,000 women, however, have found no association between caffeine and birth defects...

...Unfortunately, most Americans do not have ready access to the studies and would not know how to decipher them if they did...

...Researchers have become secretive and their sponsors greedy...

...Or they won't fund it...

...But the association's credibility is doubtful, at least insofar as the way they use research to further their self-interested goals...

...Studies have shown the reverse...

...one added eight slices of low-calorie bread...

...This ended after a mere eight weeks...

...Beware of research and researchers calling themselves independent...

...As subjects, both are imperfect...

...Sulfite, a food additive used in wine, fruits, and vegetables, is perfectly benign to all but a few people...

...With so many variables involved, it is no wonder there is an endless stream of coffee studies, each proving or ruling out ever smaller chunks of the mosaic: "Caffeine, moderate alcohol intake, and risk of fractures of the hip and forearm in middle-aged women" was the title of one 1991 study...

...Fried designed a study of the effects of drinking filtered coffee (the brewing method most Americans now prefer) on cholesterol levels...

...It is different types and ages of beans roasted at very high temperatures, releasing other chemicals...

...journal, the media may jump on a study if it promises entertainment for the readers or viewers...

...While most of the financing for food research comes from the government, private interests with financial stake in the outcome of the studies are paying a growing share...

...the experiment lasted only four months (whereas many people drink coffee for most of a lifetime...

...And if the media jump, that is good enough for many Americans...

...It can be caffeinated or not...

...Coffee each Day Keeps Asthma Away in Italy...

...For that matter, what is a cup...

...We should fuss, we should be indignant," wrote Ivan Preston about disinformation in advertising...

...drink two cups of regular coffee...

...Scientists cannot assign half of their subjects to smoke a pack of cigarettes a day...

...This research "should dispel myths that foods perceived as 'sticky' or 'chewy' pose the greatest threat of dental decay," said the center, which is financed by M&M/Mars...

...Similarly, the word "nonprofit" means little in assessing the credibility of a study...

...Four cups a day...

...Dueling studies suggest there may be associations—or there may not...

...Unless and until a study has been replicated, it should be looked on with care—the experiments proving the existence of cold fusion, still unreplicated, being a good example...

...One study even found that heavy coffee drinkers tend to be less likely to wear seat belts...

...The coffee drinker is also more likely to smoke, to eat pork and potato chips and to exercise less than someone who doesn't drink coffee...

...Oh, yes, those were the charmed substances that some years ago were felt to contain life-preserving properties...

...it does not mean that there is no financial incentive to provide agreeable results...

...A good rule is to keep in mind that a study may hint at an emerging truth, and possibly offer a diverting bit of entertainment, but in general that is all it is—a hint and a diversion...

...The nutrition study, like a political poll, is a machine with a thousand knobs...

...one group added four slices of low-calorie bread to their daily diet...

...But the flood of deliberately contradictory studies insures there will be no definitive proof of anything...

...Many food researchers must choose: research funded by an interested party or no research at all...

...and a forth added eight slices of regular bread...

...The results: The cholesterol levels of the men who drank four cups a day of regular coffee rose...

...We tend to give more weight to surveys, studies, and polls reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, Time, The New York Times, the network news shows, or The Wall Street Journal...

...nonprofit researchers still count on a regular paycheck...

...When studies differ, there are many legitimate-sounding—and possibly legitimate—reasons...

...It commissions its own research, and it trumpets other research that supports the business goals of the association members...

...Coffee Study Finds Heavy Drinking Boosts Heart Risk," announced The Wall Street Journal in March 1990...

...Eight ounces...

...When a critical study is published, the association quickly reacts, issuing new releases complete with critical comments from "independent experts...

...by 1991, that figure had jumped to more than $1.2 billion...

...Twelve...

...Woody Allen, Sleeper People know how to discount some kinds of information...

...To establish something as widely accepted as the belief that smoking causes lung cancer took decades, and the evidence came from many different threads of research—animal studies, human studies, epidemiological studies...

...Food research on mice or rats is flawed because animals have different physiologies and life expectancies: 30 months versus 70 years...

...Importantly, the JAMA study...

...Could it be cholesterol...

...The hundreds, perhaps thousands, of studies on coffee have taught scientists a few things about it...

...We have little personal experience or knowledge of the topics of much modern research, and the methodologies are incomprehensibly arcane...

...We concluded that, based on the study, drinking modest amounts of filtered coffee does raise cholesterol, but that itself wouldn't increase the risk of heart disease," Fried said...

...Five ounces...

...Coffee Study Finds No Link to Heart Illness," it reported, noting the earlier study and saying "controversy about coffee's effect on health probably will continue...

...Studies found that oat bran was good for the heart, then not good, then good...

...Six months later, the Journal revisited the coffee question...

...Even if the science hasn't been explained or published in a U.S...

...One ate their normal diet...

...the study was not double-blinded, which meant the subjects knew what they were drinking...

...You mean there was no deep fat, no steak or cream pie or hot fudge...

...A study showing that the pate-consuming French have healthier hearts actually increased sales of the fatty spread in the U.S...

...In studying food, researchers have a choice between using animals and humans...

...And where does moderate coffee drinking cross into heavy coffee drinking...

...Predictably, no one in the study gained or lost significant weight, but the researchers said they believed the bread eaters would haye lost weight if the study continued...