text_1: Another Potential Benefit of Cutting Calories: Better Memory
text_2: This newspaper report demonstrates how it’s possible for a reporter to do a competent job covering the news but fail to provide important information for readers. The study, which demonstrates that caloric restriction may improve memory in older people, delivers the essential findings adequately, mentions some key caveats, includes comments from three experts and places these findings in the context of previous work done with animals and humans. But the report fails to look beyond the narrow findings and answer important questions people will want to know as they [understandably] imagine how they might put these findings to practical use:  1. How much/little food did the restriction group eat? A 30 percent restriction for someone eating 2,000 calories per day is 1,400 calories; for someone eating 1,700 per day, that’s 1,190. Those are tough numbers. People would want to know that. 2. Is it clear the results were due to caloric restriction, not weight loss? This is the proverbial caveat big enough to drive a truck through, yet it was not mentioned. 3. Is it safe for older people–or anybody–to restrict calories by 30 percent? The failure to take up that last question is particularly serious. Older people who are not overweight could wind up malnourished if they tried to restrict their calorie intake by 30 percent. Other news organizations mentioned this prominently in their stories. The Times should have too.