You may have read some unexpected headlines recently, such as “Milk doesn’t do a body good!” While these are catchy, they can also be misleading. The most recent ones are mostly based on a single study recently published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), but the concept applies to a number of articles that you’ll see.

Food and nutrition news stories are popular, and a story that challenges the usual nutrition messages makes for a more interesting story. So it’s not terribly surprising to see coverage of a nutrition study that has results that could undermine the current “3 A Day” recommendation.

I gave my interpretation of the BMJ article last week on DairyLine. In a nutshell, one study may show interesting results or may give direction for future research, particularly if the results are different than previous studies. It’s also important to know and consider the number of study participants (larger groups provide results that can more easily be broadened to the general public) and the design of the study (some studies show cause and effect, while others just show association). However, these details are hard to explain in a regular news report, so they are often missing or presented in a way that is hard to understand. Luckily, some articles do help clarify these issues.

If you get questions from a consumer, or a friend or family member about coverage of nutrition research, IDFA is a great resource for more information. We can help you identify the strengths and weaknesses of the research in question and may also have talking points to help communicate this to others. For tricky media issues such as these, I’d encourage you to consider joining IDFA’s Member Media Network. IDFA’s communications staff is great at keeping on top of hot topics and helping you understand and communicate about them.

So here are two important things to remember: One study cannot be used as the sole basis for changing nutrition recommendations for the public — significant scientific agreement needs to be reached through a number of studies that show the same results; and IDFA staff is here to help you wade through those nutrition news stories.