The AP‘s Seth Borenstein is getting wide pickup off a chocolate story today. An international team of researchers, in what he rightly refers to as a small study, found distinct differences in the markers of gut metabolism in men who eat and like chocolate, and a few men they could find who don’t eat it because they get no charge from it at all. It’s in the Journal of Proteome Research.
The researchers best guess is that the distinct signatures in blood and urine samples are best explained by different communities of bacteria in the mens’ digestive tracts.
The list of authors prominently include some from the Nestle Research Center in Lausanne. Borenstein dutifully asked the lead author how that skewed or influenced the results. The man said it didn’t. Well, of course not. But the disclosure of the link in the story is a good touch.
Interesting is that the press release from the American Chemical Society (the journal’s publisher) said nothing about the bacterial interpretation of the data. But it’s in the paper itself. Borenstein read it. Which just goes to show – a press release is a tip sheet but last resort for verifying alleged facts except, perhaps, for how to spell the names of the people involved.
Grist for the Mill:
ACS Press Release (via ScienceDaily); J. of Proteome Research Paper pdf.;
-CP
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