Emerging Science:

September 2001

Emerging Science: Communicating the Latest Research

By Susan PitmanContributing Editor

We’ve all heard it before: “Kava Kava Helps Induce Sleep and Relaxation.” “Creatine Increases Muscular Strength.” “Eggplant Prevents Heart Disease.”

These “headlines” — or media and marketing claims — while fictitious, are compelling, no doubt. And if they grabbed your attention as someone who is trained to understand how to put new research findings into perspective, think about how these simple sound bites affect the average consumer.

Twenty-five years ago, chances were slim that a food and health-related study in a scientific journal would make the evening news or greet readers in their morning newspapers. Now, hardly a day goes by without a breaking diet, nutrition or disease-risk-reduction study making headlines, causing some of these messages to appear in the supermarket, on the Internet and in a variety of other outlets.

Studying the studiesPublic interest in information about diet and health fuels the dissemination of new findings through various public channels, including newspapers, magazines, newsletters, television shows and talk radio. Because of the nature of emerging scientific information — the incremental increase in knowledge generated by new research findings or improved interpretations of existing research data — new findings frequently are incomplete or are in conflict with the current state of knowledge. A single study usually represents just one link in a larger chain of scientific understanding.

Reports of new food and health research findings grab the attention of Americans from all walks of life. After all, food and health are central concerns to each of us.

Reporters, professors and health professionals all want the latest information — as do consumers. A single study and the reports surrounding it can send crowds of people in search of the latest food or supplement that holds promise for good health. Remember how virtually any food containing oats or oat bran practically flew off supermarket shelves in 1990 following publications of an oat bran/cholesterol study?

There are a number of reasons why. Public interest in nutrition and food safety has increased dramatically. Food stories — because they are inherently so personal — make compelling news. Just as important, scientists have much to gain from increased visibility. The same holds true for journals that first publish studies and other communicators who have an interest in advancing public understanding of issues.

Communication and regulationThe latest development in communicating emerging science to consumers is happening in the area of functional foods and dietary supplements. Inreasingly, food, beverage and supplement products boast claims of disease-risk reduction or enhanced health and well-being. But some of the claims beg the question of scientific merit. Does the science support the message or claim being made about the functional product or component in the product?

Accurately and effectively communicating about emerging science is imperative for long-term acceptance and credibility of functional foods. This has become increasingly important in an environment where recent activities have called for increased regulation of functional foods, where foods are being marketed as supplements and over-promotion and hype about potential benefits may lack in scientific basis. These issues have given rise to increased attention by the FDA, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), media and others.

In early 2001, the FDA issued a letter to the food industry restating the requirements of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act regarding the marketing of conventional foods containing novel ingredients, including botanicals. The FDA issued this letter “because of the significant growth in the marketing of foods containing these ingredients.” The FDA is concerned that some botanical and other novel ingredients being added to conventional foods are neither approved food additives, nor generally recognized as safe (GRAS) for these uses.

The FTC — which makes no regulatory distinctions between dietary supplements and foods — has made monitoring and promotion of dietary supplements a top consumer protection priority for 2001. It already has issued some guidance on this topic, which was directed to supplement companies, but is not limited to them in their applicability. The FTC’s efforts are aimed at making sure claims and messages about dietary supplements accurately reflect the science.

The most common examples cited by the FTC include those that “lack …sound science to back claims about the safety or health benefits of a particular product.” The FTC suggests that “too often advertisers make exaggerated claims that get ahead of the science, or that are based more on anecdotal evidence rather than on sound scientific research.”

Last year’s Government Accounting Office (GAO) report on functional foods, which calls for more stringent oversight by the FDA, upped the ante for all parties involved in the scientific, communications and industry communities to revisit the need to make sound science the basis for all functional-food claims.

Regulation is one means of helping to ensure that communication about emerging scientific information is accurate. However, the channels used to communicate emerging scientific information range from the highly regulated to the unregulated.

In this environment, it is possible that our efforts toward maintaining and improving credibility of functional foods through sound, science-based communications will be more difficult. An amalgam of all these issues is contributing to increasing consumer confusion and concern among health professionals and industry leaders about how to effectively communicate new and emerging science without misleading the public.

The reality about communicating emerging science to the public —via the media or food packages — has increased confusion. Surveys tell us the high volume of media coverage has not brought clarity to — or improved understanding of — a topic of such obvious impact. More has not always meant better. Increased claims on products, if not grounded in adequate scientific evidence, can potentially lead to erosion in public confidence in the area of functional foods and dietary supplements.

Pick a study, any studyFrustrated and confused by the tremendous amount of food and health information being communicated today, Americans look for simple certainties to help them protect their health through diet. The trouble is that single studies rarely provide such certainty, although they often make for great headlines.

Again, there are several reasons why. First, the public’s unfamiliarity with the scientific process can make the evolutionary nature of research appear contradictory and confusing. Second, scientists themselves don’t always agree on what constitutes scientific evidence sufficient to warrant changing recommendations to the public. Perhaps most important of all, how emerging science is communicated — by scientists, the journals, the media and the many interest groups that influence the process — also can have powerful effects on the public’s understanding, on its behavior and, ultimately, on its well-being.

Information on emerging science appears primarily in unregulated arenas, such as the media. However, more and more emerging science is being communicated in regulated vehicles, in the form of product label claims. The passage of the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990 (NLEA) marked the culmination of considerable debate, particularly regarding information on emerging science and health impact that should appear on food labels.

Leaking a study to the publicOf all the questions surrounding the communication of emerging science, perhaps the most basic is: Should single studies be communicated at all to the public at large?

Almost by definition, much of the information involved is preliminary, not conclusive, and therefore not a strong basis for change in public policy or behavior. Even so, these studies, and the news stories they spawn, can be useful in raising public awareness of key nutrition, health and food-safety issues — if they are expressed in enough context to enable the average person to weigh the information appropriately.

With each study, information will vary. The key to evaluating one study may be the limitations of its methodology. For another, it may be an understanding of which population groups are most affected by the findings. Communicators need to ask key questions so they can identify which specific answers will best inform the public.

Journalists, health professionals and educators are the gatekeepers of today’s food and health information. They determine, for the most part, what consumers hear, read and believe about food and health. Along with that comes the responsibility to provide the facts, put them in perspective, and help people determine how the findings may affect their behavior and lives. Fulfilling this responsibility requires that new studies be critically reviewed before being publicized. News releases and study abstracts, although helpful for “previewing” research, do not provide the information necessary to accurately and responsibly report findings to the public.

Interpreting the messageAll too often, communications about functional foods can include inaccurate and/or misleading statements — either from groups attacking functional foods or from overly aggressive efforts to market products. In this environment, credible messages that can be trusted and are based on sound science are vital for the future success of functional foods.

Ongoing efforts to promote science as the basis for making effective decisions about functional foods are necessary to maintain the credibility of functional foods. It is imperative to continue to bridge the gap between the consumer and the scientific community. This role includes translating quality science into understandable and usable messages, developing guidelines and tools to help influencers interpret emerging science, and working with scientists and scientific organizations to encourage them to address the science that will meet consumer needs.

The International Food Information Council (IFIC), Washington, D.C., is launching a dialogue on emerging science in an effort to raise the bar on how health professionals, journalists and other opinion leaders communicate the benefits of functional foods, and to better describe the state of the science on any given food or nutrition issue. This effort will lead to the development of guidelines and tools to help influencers interpret emerging science. The emerging science dialogue and resulting guidelines will help in answering such questions as:• How should consumers evaluate emerging science?• How should they use it to make consumption decisions?• How can more consumers and journalists understand that science never gives “final” and “absolute” answers?• How can opinion leaders learn to better describe to the consumers the state of the science on a given issue?

The “emerging science” concept is currently a “hot” issue for the functional foods and dietary supplement industries. The underlying concepts of how best to communicate and use this information are the same for all food-safety and nutrition issues.

Susan Pitman, R.D., is director of health communications programs at the International Food Information Council (IFIC) in Washington, D.C. She directs and manages communications programs related to functional foods, food allergy, food ingredients, food biotechnology and other related issues.

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