The Complete Patient

I hate to keep returning to The New York Times, but it is doing more than other mainstream publications in trying to make sense of recent studies about nutritional supplements and diet. On Sunday, it attempted to assess the implications of recent studies of women suggesting that calcium and vitamin D didn't reduce hip fractures, and that low-fat diets didn't reduce cancer.

Typical of mainstream media, it agonized over the absence of a clearcut answer.  Assuming the answer is "no," it wondered whether women should abandon low-fat diets and return to bacon cheeseburgers.

But what if the answers aren't clearcut? What if individuals differ enough, and the potential combinations yielding benefits are more complicated than "low-fat" vs "high-fat"? What if environmental toxins are more of a factor than any study has yet shown, irrespective of the supplements one takes? That is something the mainstream media haven't figured out how to deal with.

At least they do allow that more studies will likely be needed to obtain answers. I suspect lots more studies.