Have you ever read a headline or news article, or heard a story on TV or the radio, then stopped taking a drug, or adjusted a treatment your doctor has recommended to you?

Don’t!

Doctors tell me it can be dangerous to make such changes on your own. Many drugs can wreak havoc if they are suddenly stopped. Eating or not eating certain foods can upset your intake of nutrients. By making changes on your own, you risk even bigger problems for yourself.

Medical news is typically based on a report of the results of a study or research, such as how to diagnose a certain condition or disease, or how to treat it more effectively. Rather than changing your behavior based on a news story, use it to begin an investigation of your own.

Begin by making sure the study participants represent you. As important as the disease or condition that was studied, are their ages, genders, physical and health-related characteristics. If the study was about hormone replacement therapy in women who have had total hysterectomies, and you still have an ovary, it won’t apply to you. If the study resulted in information about beta-blockers in men over 50, and you are a 55-year-old male with heart disease, then study further.

Within the news article, find out who originally issued the study results. Then, using the internet or your local library, find the original study on which the news story was based.

Credibility is important. If the original results were published by a peer-reviewed medical publication such as the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), then the findings will be worth your review. If they were issued by any organization that stands to profit from the results, and the study has not been publicly accepted by medical professionals, then be more cautious about whether the results can really be helpful to you.

Once you’ve established the study’s credibility, then look for important components to the research such as how many people were evaluated, how long the study lasted, and whether the results have been replicated in other studies.

If the study was credible, the participants are reflective of you, and the overall research findings could affect your diagnosis or treatment, then make a copy of the findings, and take the information to your doctor for review. Your doctor will then help you decide whether a change is needed in your treatment.

That’s the safe way to translate medical headlines for your own benefit.

©  2006 Trisha Torrey

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