Due Date:September 22, 2014
Title and weblink to news article: don't forget the citation rules for these.
Title and weblink to original scientific paper: don't forget the citation rules for these.
This study, conducted by Huang et al, concluded that Pre-diabetes is associated with significant increase in cancer risk. This increase in cancer risk is also not due to obesity being a factor. When BMI (body mass index) was controlled in the study, there was an increase risk of cancer by 22 percent in patients with Pre-diabetes. This increase in cancer is mostly associated with cancer of the liver, as well as stomach cancer, but is actually unassociated with prostate, ovarian, kidney, and bladder cancer. The researchers concluded that successful life-style intervention should help impact cancer prevention by lower the risk of pre-diabetes.
1) What specific claim(s) does the news article make about the study? That is, what did the news article say was discovered? For each claim, indicate if the original paper actually makes that claim.
The news article claims that pre-diabetes increases the risk of cancer by 22 percent. The scientific journal article backs up this claim by indicating that “Prediabetes was associated with an increased risk of cancer overall (RR 1.15; 95% CI 1.06, 1.23)”. This claim is further backed up by figure 2 in the article, where the incidence in cancer risk is compared linearly. The media article also states that successful life-style changes can help to prevent cancer. The whole journal article basically backs this up.
2) Most technical papers have a "Conclusions" section (often labeled as such). Find this section. Are the items which the original authors highlighted as conclusions of their study discussed in the news article? Indicate "yes" or "no", giving your evidence.
Yes, for the most part, the items discussed in conclusions section of the scientific journal by Huang et al is discussed by the media article on Pubmed. The main conclusion that the scientific article makes is that pre-diabetes is indeed associated with an increased risk in cancer. This is actually the main point of the article, and as such is in the introduction of the article. The scientific journal also that the risk is associated with people with an FPG level lower than 56 mmol/L. This piece of actual scientific data was not included in the media report.
3) Most technical papers will describe the uncertainty around their conclusions and discoveries, often discussed in a section labeled "Discussion." Uncertainty might be expressed as error bars, confidence intervals, p-values, ranges of values, etc. Does the original paper describe the degree of confidence the scientists have in their discoveries? If so, describe this, and indicate whether or not the news article also discusses the degree of uncertainty.
The scientific journal by Huang et al has p-values for the confidence in the risk of site-specific cancers. Pre-diabetes associated with increased risks of cancer in the stomach/colorectum, liver, pancreas, breast and endometrium has a p value of less than .05. P-values for the sitespecific cancer of the liver, contrastingly, is at p= 0.01. These values were not reported in the media article.
4) It is the job of the news reporter to make whatever item they are reporting on relevant to some larger issue or set of issues; in contrast, a technical paper is often much more focused and may not deal with broader implications of the work. Do you find examples of the reporter discussing "broader implications" not present in the original paper? If so, describe them. Additionally, if so, indicate whether you (as a reader) can see that this broader implication actually does follow from the conclusions of the study.
The only piece of information that the media article takes to broader implications is that of the fact that a healthier lifestyle could potentially prevent cancer. The media article addressed means of doing so, while the scientific journal merely expressed this as a conclusion.
5) In some technical paper the original scientists might describes previous contradictory work of previous research (often in the "Introduction"), which they presumably consider their new work has overturned. If so, does the news article reflect that this study has resulted in the rejection of a previous hypothesis?
This scientific journal by Huang et al did not address any contradictory work in the introduction as it was broadly presumed that an unhealthy lifestyle/ pre-diabetes can cause a higher risk for cancer. Thus, there is no mention of contradictory work in the media article.
6) Journalists very often couch science news items as "debates between equal sides", even if the weight of the evidence is not equal. Does the news article discuss alternative hypotheses that are not mentioned in the original paper? If so, does the news article give a measure of what degree of evidential support exists for either of the alternative models?