One again lazy health journalists have fallen down on the job and performed a disservice to the public. The new outrage: a multitude of media reports about a small study on the effect of jogging on mortality. Here are just a few headlines, published minutes after the study was published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology:
- Fast running is as deadly as sitting on couch, scientists find (The Telegraph, UK)
- New study shows casual joggers outlast ironmen over long term (Chicago Tribune)
- When Exercise Does More Harm than Good (Time)
But a careful reading of the paper shows that this small study provides nowhere near enough evidence to support these headlines.
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This stuff drives me crazy – mostly because it fuels my parents being angry about my running!