Who's Funding the Health Research You Believe?

The word "research" is thrown around a lot these days.

You go to the health food store and you'll hear about how research shows how a new supplement is the cure for what ails you.

You go to the gym, and maybe you'll hear the trainer talking about how the "latest" research shows that this diet is better than that one.

You go to the doctor and they'll make their prescriptions (almost always pharmacology-focused) based on the "research".

Well, let's face it, most health food store workers and most trainers (as well as your family's own nutrition guru) really don't know the research.

Let's face it, most of the time, the research they read is really comprised of some blurb they've ready in their favorite health and fitness magazine or maybe a recent news story. (Hmmm.... last time I checked, magazines and television media make their money fromadvertisers so just maybe that would affect how the research is presented.

Even more likely, advertising dollars affect which research is included in the media and which research is quietly left out and intentionally forgotten.

When it comes to Docs, and I have the utmost respect for them (I train a few fantastic Docs), and truly believe they are trying to give their patients the best care. But the practicing MD, DC, ND, or DO has limited hours each week to keep up on the research(essentially the same problem I face).

Their paradigm is predominately treatment based (rather than prevention based), and when they do read the research, they have to question how "truthful" the research really is.

It is known that research "findings" are easily influenced by who is funding the research.

So my question to you is, "Do you know who is funding the health, nutrition, and medical research which you are influenced by?"

It's a big question... and a big problem.

For example, a 2008 article published in the American Medical Association's Journal of Ethics by James Lake, MD, highlights how treatments options are biased in favor of Western allopathic medicine, rather than alternative treatments, due to how researchis funded.

Specific to one of my areas of expertise, exercise psychology, we know that exercise is a powerful treatment which is just as effective as pharmaceutical drugs for mild depression. However, as cited in the AMA article, "the literature review process on which American Psychiatric Association guidelines are based largely ignores citations of studies about nonconventional modalities" such as exercise to treat depression.

And to make the issue even more messy, as I alluded to above, we have to wonder what research we're not seeing. In the case of research sponsored by the drug companies, we know that studies which are not favorable to their drugs are often hidden as much aspossible. Certainly, these negative studies will not be appearing in industry press releases.

According to Lake, "a study of the impact of funding sources on the validity and reliability of pharmaceutical research was conducted by the American Medical Association Council on Scientific Affairs, who found that over half the research contracts in university-industry-sponsored studies permitted researchers to delay publication, more than one-third of the contracts allowed the drug company sponsor to delete unfavorable data prior to publication, and 30 percent of these contracts allowed both delays in publication and selective deletion of information."

And although I am hammering the pharmaceutical industry, it's virtually every industry which is trying to sell you something. Every one of the foods you eat is supported by its own industry which funds and attempts to influence research.

My take away message is that you need to be aware of how the research you hear about is affected by the sources of its funding.

You have to stay informed and do your best to have access to objective health professionals who try to sort through the pages of biased studies and can deliver to you the best recommendations at this time.

Next time you see, hear, and read about some new research study, just ask yourself who may have funded the study. It's a valuable question.

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