“I don’t believe it”
That was one of two reactions to a study published in JAMA yesterday. The study, which tracked 50,000 women for decades, found no connection between a low fat diet and cancer or heart disease. (pop summary)
If you’re like me and you run screaming from a donut, you couldn’t help but take the position that Dean Ornish took. The study was "deeply flawed" from the outset because the fat-content
reduction was too low, he said. "It didn’t ask participants to do much to begin
with.”
And the other reaction? "Let’s go to Krispy Kreme!"
If a $415 million study, one sponsored by National Heart Lung and Blood Institute and featured in the Journal of the American Medical Association isn’t sufficient to change the minds of people who care about their health…
…what chance is there that a banner ad or direct mail letter or TV commercial is going to change anyone’s preconceptions about what you sell?
It’s a lot easier to leverage a worldview than it is to change one.