{"id":1865,"date":"2015-08-10T19:17:00","date_gmt":"2015-08-10T23:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.willclower.com\/blog\/2015\/08\/on-that-fake-chocolate-study.html"},"modified":"2016-09-19T11:05:06","modified_gmt":"2016-09-19T15:05:06","slug":"on-that-fake-chocolate-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?p=1865","title":{"rendered":"On That Fake Chocolate Study"},"content":{"rendered":"
I find myself in an awkward position. <\/span><\/div>\n

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Journalist John Bohannon wanted to show that the scientific review process can have huge holes in it. He also wanted to show that the media review of scientific (sounding) stories is often completely uncritical. <\/span><\/div>\n

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Because of these two factors, what gets to the public can be anything from true, to benignly misleading, to flat out false.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n

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Follow @willclower<\/a><\/div>\n
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<\/a>So he designed an intentionally shoddy study that happened to show a relationship between chocolate and weight loss. <\/span><\/div>\n

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As part of his ruse, the result was trumpeted as a legitimate outcome and many in the media presented it without checking sources, the \u201cinstitute\u201d they fabricated for this, or the conditions of the study itself. <\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
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Mission accomplished. <\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
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But why is this awkward? <\/span><\/div>\n

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<\/a>Because he did it using chocolate as the variable and weight loss as the outcome. And I wrote a book entitled Eat Chocolate, Lose Weight<\/i>! This work draws from 121 references, along with scientist interviews on the impact of high cocoa chocolate, cocoa, and the catechin polyphenols found in cocoa on cellular and organ levels, in humans and experimental animals. <\/span><\/div>\n

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In writing this work, I know how to be restrained when interpreting results. I know the difference between correlation and causation and the need to replicate research because one result does not a conclusion make. <\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n

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And yet, despite this leg work to make sure the scientific Ts were crossed and Is were dotted, Bohannon\u2019s reporting on the fake study projected an image that linked together the ideas of chocolate and diet and hoax. <\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/h3>\n

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<\/a>For example, when he revealed that he had lied, headlines largely reported on it by linking the words chocolate and weight loss to words like fake and hoax. <\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n

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