Medical Studies, More Medical Studies, and More Damn Medical Studies

In order for me to keep up-to-date with the latest health research, I subscribe to MedlinePlus, “a service of the US National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health.” From this service, I get several updates per week via email about current medical findings, most funded by the National Institute of Health.

In my mail this week, were two studies that I found myself having difficulty in justifying the NIH’s substantiation for its funding.

One entitled, “ Dairy foods help kids build stronger bones,” is obvious. The relationship between dairy foods and strong bones has been around a long time. Remember the saying, “Help Kids Build Stronger Bones and Better Bodies?” Even when I was a kid, many years ago, I heard this phrase.

The one difference in this study was its duration--it followed children for about 12 years, from the ages of 3-5 to 15-17. The results of the study were not surprising:

“Study participants who averaged two or more servings of dairy foods a day throughout their childhood had a higher bone mineral content, greater bone area, and greater bone mineral density than those who ate less, the researchers found. Children who ate four or more servings of meat or another protein source also had denser bones.”

Bottom line: Serve milk with all your meals starting from when your children are at a very young age.

The other study was entitled, “Nausea, vomiting takes a toll on pregnant women.”

You mean nausea and vomiting “ may exert a significant negative impact on a woman's health-related quality of life?”

Of course they do. It’s like studying if you have the flu, so you’re not going to feel very well. I’m shocked.

Did we really require and need a study to tell us that pregnancy, and its concomitant symptoms of nausea and vomiting may have a negative impact on pregnant women?

I wonder how many of these researchers have been pregnant.

Bottom line: “It is important to report early pregnancy nausea and vomiting to physicians, and for physicians to treat these symptoms of early pregnancy.”

I’m a huge supporter of medical studies, keeping the general public informed about current health trends and new breakthroughs in treatments or improvements in how we can treat illness; but as was pointed out during this past election cycle throwing money at nonsensical studies isn’t necessary and is both a waste of time and our money.

We need new research, but repeated research is a lose/lose situation because

After all, it’s about a healthy lifestyle!

© Iowa Avenue

Photos courtesy of NickPiggott and dizznbonn