Making Sense of Medical Studies and Getting the Most Out of Them for Your Health

Recently, I wrote an article detailing the studies on coconut oil and heart health and was flooded with feedback. A lot of feedback was positive, leaving many individuals enlightened on a topic they may not have known about, some was neutral (or positive) showing reinforcement for what readers already knew, and some was filled with uncertainty, confusion, or even downright disdain for the write-up.

Below, I share a couple of the comments received, both positive and negative, to set the stage for this article:

Coconut Oil Increases Cardiovascular Disease Risk and Possible Death Due to Heart Attacks and Stroke

If you do a Google search for “Coconut Oil Health Benefits” over four million results will pop up. Coconut oil has been made out to be a miracle cure for everything from heart disease to Alzheimer’s disease in our culture, but is it really true? What evidence do we have to support these claims?

The best way to evaluate any claim for any health product is to find peer-reviewed controlled interventional studies testing the use of that product on morbidity and mortality (i.e. disability and death) rates for the disease in question. Unfortunately, for coconut oil, there are no such studies. Without this data we’re left with testimonial stories of one miracle after another happening from those making coconut oil a popularized “health” product.

Curing Migraine Headaches With Diet

According to the National Headache Foundation 29.5 million Americans suffer from migraine headaches, with women being affected three times more then men.¹ Migraines can be debilitating and often lead to the inability to perform normal everyday activities, especially if they become full-blown.

The burden of migraines isn’t just physical pain and suffering. These headaches carry an enormous amount of financial strain on both the patients who suffer from them and on our country as a whole. Recent data has shown that the direct costs of treating migraines—including doctor visits, medications, emergency room visits, diagnostic tests, etc.—is over $11 billion a year in the United States.² This works out to an average of $2,571 annually for each individual. Indirect costs—due to things like decreased productivity and absenteeism from work—are estimated at nearly $12 billion annually.³ Needless to say, migraine headaches are more than just a pain in the neck.