Understanding Medical Research

It seems to happen almost every day - you hear about a new result of medical research on television or read about it in the paper. Sometimes the results of one study seem to disagree with the results of another study. It's important to be critical when reading or listening to reports of new medical findings. Some questions that can help you evaluate health information include: Was the study in animals or people? Does the study include people like you? Was it a randomized controlled clinical trial ? Where was the research done? If a new treatment was being tested, were there side effects? Who paid for the research? Who is reporting the results?