On any given day, you can find numerous blogs or so-called topical "news" sites offering recent stories about research claiming to show groundbreaking findings that accelerate problems related to aging. The ones that seem to get the greatest attention are those showing how this food or that food is a magical solution to all of your problems. They often go on to say something like:
"New research shows that eating chocolate daily will increase your life span by fifty years."
Of course, being told to eat more chocolate is just about the best thing ever. But here's the thing, there's only one way to know if chocolate makes you live even 5 years longer -- carefully select two groups of babies at birth, assign one to be the chocolate group, the other to have none and observe them until they die, and make sure to measure every bit of chocolate in the chocolate group because how much you eat is obviously really important, and the type of chocolate... Oh, and make sure to control EVERY other factor that could influence how long they live. In other words, there aren't any studies that can show this...yet.
This might lead you to conclude that all research about aging is useless, but I can assure you that research has revealed a significant amount about the aging process. We just have to take into consideration the limitations of what we can learn from any individual study. Scientific discoveries are almost always based on piecemeal discoveries, rarely on one study alone. Research is a process designed to produce an accumulation of information about relationships -- relationships between different factors and different outcomes. When a whole bunch of people study the same thing and observe the same outcome, we come to strong conclusions. For example, many studies have examined the effect of exercise on health and longevity. All come to the same conclusion -- exercise is good for you. Many have discovered it's good for your brain, your heart, your bones/muscles, your mental health, etc. In fact, some studies have even assigned some people to start exercising who were previously sedentary and discovered that starting exercising is related to astonishing health gains! So, researchers safely conclude that exercise has a range of health benefits, and as we learn more, we are beginning to figure out exactly how much and which types offer the biggest bang for your buck, so to speak. But we're not there yet.
Here's the kicker, associations between this factor and that outcome, even when observed over and over isn't always evidence of a causal relationship. Let me offer a silly example. Suppose someone was interested in learning whether owning a Prius was related to decreased fertility rates. Such a study would very likely show, even if observed by multiple people over a long period of time, that there is a consistent, negative relationship between owning a Prius and fertility. But, does this mean that hybrid cars cause infertility? Or perhaps that people who own them don't attract mates? Probably not. Here's why: it is more likley the case that people who own a Prius tend to have fewer children than, for example, people who own Suburbans. They also tend to have higher levels of education, which is predictive of lower fertility. This example might seem ridiculous, but it's not very different from other research in which people seem to draw similar conclusions.
Several months ago, a friend of mine posted a link to a natural health site that described results form a recent study about flouride in drinking water and cancer. The study involved several different communities in China. Some of the communities had normal amounts of flouride concentrations added to the drinking water, and some had four times the normal concentrations. The researchers examined overall cancer rates for each community over the last year. They concluded communities with four times the flouride in the drinking water had higher cancer rates. The natural health site reporting these results had the headline "flouride causes cancer" and then went on to point out why no one should consume flouride. Not only did the study authors NOT indicate this in the study, the purpose of the study was to determine if HIGH concentrations might be related to cancer, not whether flouride was good or bad. While it's certainly plausible that flouride causes cancer, that study couldn't have commented on such a relationship.
It's hard though, right? I mean, if you are a person who personally believes that flouride is awful stuff, even if the science doesn't show this, you might be happy to have some evidence to prove it! Aha! See, fellow supporters of flouride! I told you it was bad stuff! But alas, this is irresponsible consumption of information. At a time when aging and health research is splashed all over the news on a daily basis, it is now more than ever important to be cautious about jumping on the bandwagon with "research-based" recommendations presented by the media. If you hear a study that supports your own cause, you might be inclined to believe what you hear, but you should always carefully consider the information presented. Even gold standard research designs -- randomized case control studies -- have limitations.
Be a smarter consumer of information!
Here's how: Look for information that challenges your ideas, not just ones that support them. Consider how the research was done. Did the researchers just look at people who tried the mushroom-banana-mango extract, or did they compare them with people who just ate bananas? How many people did they look at? Was it only 15 people? Heck, if you picked 15 people off the street who said they believe that mushroom-banana-mango supplements were going to make them feel more energetic, the study would probably show this, even though it wasn't really the supplement that made them feel better.
We all need to be just a little more cautious about data, or advice columns, or so called "expert" descriptions of the top 5 reasons why you should eat more chocolate!, particularly in an era when "BIG DATA" is everywhere, and even the timing of our morning bathroom breaks are being measured. And, also trust that the piecemeal accumulation of data that is the scientific process will offer more and more insight with time. But, don't hold your breath. There's probably never going to be a silver bullet pill or super food that is going to reverse aging. You may not want to do the work, but exercise, fruits and veggies, enough sleep...you know, that stuff you've heard over and over but aren't doing?...Yeah, that's probably your best bet! But have some chocolate now and again, just in case!