Red wine and sloppy science

More than 20 years ago, some scientists declared that drinking red wine was good for your heart, the idea being that it had “a flushing effect” that prevented clot-forming cells from clinging to artery walls. Drinking red wine was touted as the answer to why French people—lovers of pâté, butter, and triple crème Brie—had lower rates of heart disease than people in the U.S. The studies supporting the health effects of red wine have since been debunked. Many new studies are now saying that no amount of alcohol is good for your heart.

Who can you trust? Shoto David, a scientist with a PhD in molecular biology, quit his job to pursue his hobby of finding flaws in scientific papers and trying to get the errors rectified. So far, he has flagged about 2,000 error-riddled scientific papers, including those produced by the Harvard-affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. That Institute is retracting six research papers and correcting 31 more. In 2021, a surgeon at Columbia University quietly withdrew his cancer study because of flawed research. The fact that these papers appear in top scientific, peer-reviewed journals makes you wonder about the peer review process—and about research studies in general.

Nutritional research is plagued with credibility problems, partly because the world of scientific research is competitive. Grant money depends on getting research published. Journals select articles that make splashy news. In 2019, the often-quoted founder of the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University was booted from his position because of academic misconduct, including “misreporting of research data.” His studies have been cited more than 20,000 times. Fifteen of those studies have been retracted.

So how about those cheese-loving French people and their healthy hearts? I’m just waiting for the nonsense about the dangers of saturated fat to be debunked.  

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