
A study about beer and another about soda-pop hit the streets recently. If either of them had been remotely conclusive, they'd be really exciting. Alas...
• The soda study appears in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. It followed 60,524 men and women in the Singapore Chinese Health Study for 14 years. During that time, there were 140 pancreatic cancer cases. Those who consumed two or more soft drinks per week (averaging five per week) had an 87 percent increased risk compared with individuals who did not.
The only problem with this study is that the test subjects who guzzled pop tended to have overall bad nutritional habits, so there's no way of knowing if soda drinking was the issue. It could have been smoking or red meat consumption. (Sorry, Dave, the red meat thing comes from the researchers, not me.)

Another mystery to me is the age of the researchers. If you look at Dr. Mark and Dr. Susan's photos above, they look awfully young. The only thing I could imagine either of them following for 14 year would be The Simpsons, but what do I know?•••
• The beer study is even dodgier. It appears in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture. It claims that silicon affects bone density positively and since beer has lots of silicon in it, it should be good for bones. It's a logical assumption, but an assumption nonetheless. Pam Anderson could not be reached for comment. She could not be reached at all, actually. I've been trying for years.
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In case you're wondering why I'm telling you about these two inconclusive studies, I just wanted to prepare you. In the upcoming months, sugar-hatin' health bloggers are going to conveniently forget to mention how thin the Singapore study is and beer-lovin' party bloggers will fail to mention the big gap in the silicon study.
Now, thanks to The Real Fitness Nerd, you'll know the real story, which is that no one knows the real story.
Except, perhaps, Pam Anderson. Tell her to call me.





