Yes, Kylie, that's the problem with medicine. In no other science field you'll find so much contradictory "evidence". This is compounded by popular media articles and self-styled health gurus, who lack the ability to dig into a published study's data. Many times, you'll find that the interpretation of the data is somewhat iffy.
Since you wonder about whole milk and eggs, I have addressed both issues in recent posts:
(https://medium.com/write-a-catalyst/the-egg-debate-why-theyll-never-settle-it-and-how-you-can-56500f509f0b)
And the milk:
Another issue is the lack of differentiation between statistical significance and clinical relevance. As a lay reader you'll be impressed by a 50% risk increase for a heart attack, for example. But these are almost always relative risks, not absolute risks. If your absolute risk is 2%, a 50% increase translates into a 3% absolute risk. And that translates into a number needed to harm (NNH) of 100, that is, if 100 people do whatever it is that increases the risk, then only 1 of them will really suffer a heart attack. That's why I always look into the data. Then there is bias. Pharma companies and other funders of studies "sway" the results of the studies that they finance. And "swaying the data" is easy to do.
My have touched on that subject here:
BTW, I always welcome suggestions for subjects that you, as a reader, are interested in. If it is within my area of competence, I’ll take it up as the topic of a future post.
