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Topic 01
Health & Wellness
Sleep, food, exercise and supplements, and the claims about them that get repeated until they sound like facts. Each one gets followed back to the study it came from, to see what was actually measured.
Most of what goes wrong in health news is a gap between the study and the sentence written about it: a relative risk reported as if it were absolute, a mouse result reported as if it were people, a definition quietly swapped.
In this section
Covers
- Nutrition headlines and diet studies
- Supplements and what the label means
- Sleep, light and caffeine
- Exercise and recovery
Doesn’t cover
- Personal medical advice or dosing
- Diagnosing anything
- Brand reviews or sponsored picks
Starter questions
When a diet study “doubles” a risk, doubled from what?
Usually from a small absolute number. The question to ask is how many people out of 100 it actually affected. Want this one sooner? Tell me.
Which supplement claims survive past the mechanism?
A plausible mechanism is where a claim starts, not where it’s proven. The useful question is whether anyone tested the outcome in people. Want this one sooner? Tell me.
Does that sleep trick everyone swears by do anything?
Sleep advice spreads faster than the studies behind it. Worth checking which tricks have anything underneath. Want this one sooner? Tell me.
Is spinach really a good source of iron?
On paper it has plenty. How much your body absorbs is a different story. Want this one sooner? Tell me.
All Health & Wellness Memos
01
On the desk
The first Memo is on the desk.
It goes out the day it’s finished. Until then, have a look around the topics.