How to interpret health stories

"If the coverage is on the radio, I recommend sticking your fingers in your ears and loudly saying 'la-la-la' to yourself".

So has said statistician Professor David Spiegelhalter from the University of Cambridge in the academic outlet The Conversation.

He's warned against reading into claims in the media reporting findings from scientific studies such as eating lots of white bread leading to a greater risk of obesity - saying that, "since we would not be reading about a study in which these associations had not been found, we should take no notice of these claims".

Where there are "proper reviews of the totality of evidence", these should be listened to, he says.

A significant element of inaccurate news reporting of academic research that we come across is where outlets try to draw their own conclusions from the research.

For example, recently it was claimed that there were 800 needless asthma deaths a year. When we heard this figure put to the research's author on the Today programme he seemed wary of committing to the figure and attributed it to Asthma UK rather than his own research. When we spoke to him, it turned out this wasn't what the research said.