UC Helps Debunk Health Myths in Wellness Letter

Sit-ups won’t reduce that extra layer of lard around your middle, taking vitamins won’t jazz up your sex life, and fluoridated water is safe and economical.

Those are a few facts provided by the Wellness Letter, a monthly publication on nutrition, fitness and stress management published in association with the UC Berkeley School of Public Health.

It is designed to debunk popular health care myths and translate helpful, but often highly technical, research findings into normal English.

“Wellness, this is definitely the word of the ‘80s,” newsletter managing editor Dale Ogar said.

“I think people perceive that in a world just overflowing with misinformation about health, that what they read in here they can believe, and I think that’s the major thing we’ve got going for us,” Ogar added.

Regular features include buying guides for products ranging from toothpaste and pasta to sunglasses and cereal, a first-aid column and in-depth reporting on issues such as relaxation, sleep, cholesterol, fiber and caffeine.

“It can’t be too soft,” Ogar said about the tone of newsletter articles. “It has to be based on significant, important and accurate research.”

The Wellness Letter is one of a growing number of consumer-oriented publications on current health issues being produced under university guidance. Columbia, Tufts and Harvard have undertaken similar projects, Ogar said.

An Educational Role

“We had an obligation in this area to try to play a role in educating the public,” according to Dr. Joyce Lashof, dean of the School of Public Health. That role includes “not to over-hype, to debunk things that aren’t proven” and help people make decisions about their health.

Health Letters Associates approached a noted University of California, Berkeley, nutritionist, Dr. Sheldon Margen, about whether the School of Public Health would team up with professional writers and researchers in New York to publish the Wellness Letter.

Financial backing was provided by Health Letters and UC regents agreed that the school should review “every single word” in each issue of the newsletter, Ogar said.

The Wellness Letter, started in 1985, has a healthy circulation. Subscriptions, costing $15 for the first year and $18 a year after that, total 300,000, Lashof said.

“I have this idea that something like this should be in every doctor’s office, that this is what patients should be reading instead of People,” Ogar said.

Surveys show that readers tend to be older, around 50, and very concerned with “what it means to get old in this society,” Ogar said. “Which is something that kind of surprised me. I expected this to be gobbled up by the Yuppies.”

Ironically, there are those in the Public School of Health who are not newsletter fans. “We’ve found there’s kind of a loyal opposition out there who still doesn’t think the university should be involved in this sort of project,” Ogar said.

UC takes 5% of the publication’s gross income and has set up a School of Public Health fund to be spent on special lecturers and innovative projects, not for daily department operations, Ogar said.