Why “research Shows” Is Often Misleading
This video explains why we always hear about promising therapies for, say, cancer, even though very few of these advances have ever appeared in the clinic. The reason is not Big Pharma’s conspiracy or incompetent doctors. This is because laboratory test results rarely stand up to real-world testing.
In the video, Jonathan Jarry of the Body of Evidence podcast uses marble as a substitute for research with positive results. Many drugs work in vitro , which means in glass. This means laboratory work with cells and chemicals, for example in test tubes. But only a few of the treatments that work in the laboratory can work safely on animals. And only a few of them undergo three rounds of clinical trials, which test whether drugs are safe and effective for real patients with real diseases.
Some discoveries are so exciting that they even make it into the news from in vitro or mouse studies, frustrating us when the magic pill never materializes. And some people looking to sell supplements or talk about superfoods will cite sketchy early research on their product to convince you to take it now. Jarry is more blunt when he says that “charlatans bypass due process to sell you bums.”
Gauntlet | Body of evidence