Guyside: Don’t trust the media! (Well, completely)

Posted by Bob LeDrew on Jul 9, 2014 in anxiety, Guyside, health, general | 0 comments

Yesterday, a friend of mine posted a link on her FB profile  to a study about births by Caesarean section yesterday. The link, to the site IFLS (or, if you’re a saltymouth like me, I fucking love science), pointed to a study that found “Cesarean delivery may cause epigenetic changes in Babies DNA.”

Her caption: “Great. Something else for me to feel guilty about.” 

Now, I know very well that my friend’s line was tongue-in-cheek. But there’s a glint of a problem underneath her tossed-off line.

The study looked at 43 babies, 25 born by vaginal birth and 18 by Caesarean. The researchers theorize that the changes in DNA that take place in Caesarean babies are related to the relative lack of stress they’re exposed to compared to babies being born the “normal” way and the corresponding lack of activation of their immune systems.

But I don’t want to talk about this study — I want to talk about how we all react to studies. Last week I talked about being healthily skeptical of alternative treatments. But we need a healthy skepticism about ALL treatments and research, and we need to ensure we don’t kick ourselves because of our past actions.

It’s easy to look at current dietary, drug, or treatment recommendations and look back at choices you’ve made  and see them as wrong or ill-advised. For my friend, it was having a C-section when her child was born. First off, there’s nothing that can be done about the past. Even if this study were utterly correct, there’s no remedial action she can take.

Second off, there’s the nature and limitations of any study you read or hear about. This study, for example, has a very small sample size, leading to questions about how much the findings can be extrapolated. Also, in the IFLS article about the study, here are sentences from the first and last paragraphs: “So far there has not been enough follow up to know whether the effects are long lasting… He pointed out that epigenetic changes can be either temporary or permanent and it is too early to tell whether the effects he identified will last.”  

So in this case, based on 18 test subjects, researchers observed a change in gene expression at birth. Is this related to long-term health effects? Maybe. Do we know for sure? No. Does this in any way help someone who was born via Caesarean? No.

There are thousands of pieces of research published each year that might relate to a health condition you possess — anything from cancer to bunions to myopia. When you see a news story about some piece of research, for your own good be careful about your reactions and your actions. Scientific research is a mosaic. You can’t see the whole picture without stepping back and looking at all the pieces.