Flaws in a scientific study

About a week ago Michigan Radio reported on a scientific study that said girls eating a high-fat diet became women with higher incidence of breast cancer and at a younger age. Since my nutritionist talks of the benefits of a high-fat diet I went to the Michigan Radio site to read the full article. It was a bit more specific in saying the study was done on mice and the fat in the study was lard. So I shared the link with my nutritionist to see what flaws we could find. I pointed out two:

* Humans are not mice.

* The news report was based on a "pre-clinical trial." It is hard to know what that means. A trial on a small number of mice so statistics were less accurate, done before a larger trial? A trial on mice before a trial on humans? The article doesn't say.

Just now I thought of a third point:

* Who paid for the study?

My nutritionist points out a couple more important questions.

* What was the diet (supposedly healthy) eaten by the control group of mice?

* Was the lard from organically raised pigs or from pigs that ate GMO corn and were injected with hormones and antibiotics?

Overall, she notes there are too many variables and not enough data.

All that leads to the big question:

* Why was the results of a "pre-clinical trial" rushed into the news?

That we can answer. To reinforce the perception that a low-fat diet is a healthy diet, pushed by the food industry that makes low-fat processed foods.

Even though I praised science winning out over Fundies and Big Oil earlier today I'm skeptical of many scientific studies. There have been too many of those that have tried to portray me and other gay people as doomed to a short life, incapable of being other than promiscuous, and unfit to raise children. I'll maintain that skepticism on matters of diet.