text_1: Teen eating habits may help cut breast cancer risk
text_2: This story focuses on a recent study from the journal Pediatrics, which found that women who ate more dietary fiber during adolescence and young adulthood had a lower risk of developing breast cancer. The story does a nice job of addressing the strengths and weaknesses of the study — as does a competing story we reviewed from NPR. However, as with the NPR story, this story would have been even better if it had explained that the 16% lower risk of cancer was a relative risk reduction, and that the absolute difference was a mere 0.2 percentage point. Moreover, the story would have been improved by the use of more appropriate language in the headline — this type of study can’t tell us whether fiber “may help cut breast cancer risk,” and the story should’ve reflected that uncertainty in its headline description. According to the CDC, breast cancer is the most common cancer in women in the United States, with more than 224,000 new cases reported in 2012 alone. Findings that early life experiences (diet and behavior) affect later chance of malignancy and heart disease are beginning to emerge. This should be intuitive, but is hard to show in studies because of the very long periods between the early life experiences and later health outcomes.