As if trying to pull meaning out of the medical literature weren’t difficult enough as it is, a new study demonstrates yet another obstacle to easy understanding: the adherer effect.

We’ve all seen the headlines.  Statins improve bone health.  Statins prevent cancer.  Statins make us smarter.  Low-fat diets improve longevity.  All these headlines and others like them are followed by articles describing studies seeming to show that subjects taking certain medications (usually statin drugs, it seems) or following a particular diet have improvements in health and/or longevity.  The promise of these articles is that if we all take the medication or follow the lifestyle choice, we, too, will reduce our risk of [fill in the blank] or live longer.  But will we?

Maybe so.  But not for the reason most people think.

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