Frustrated with feeling like generic health advice doesn’t work for you? Maybe it’s because science speaks to the average person—and you’re anything but average. When designing a study, scientists control for variables, or differences among people, to draw conclusions that can be applied to the average person in that specific study population. This means scientists create inclusion criteria to select certain types of people while excluding outliers: people who don’t fit the mold.
If you break down caffeine in an unusually slow or fast way, or if you have anxiety, which can affect how your body responds to stress or medications, guess what? You might be excluded from a study’s results or never invited to participate in the first place. And if you aren’t represented in the study, then its conclusions might not apply to you. Even among participants who do fit the study criteria, individual responses can vary widely.
Nearly 20 years ago, I attended a conference in Boston titled “Living Well to 100.” Among the many presentations, one scientist’s findings stood out to me. He hypothesized that consuming omega-3 fatty acids would lower cholesterol and triglyceride levels.
But the results were far from one-size-fits-all. Roughly a third of the participants experienced the expected decrease in cholesterol and triglycerides. Another third saw no change at all.
Surprisingly, the final third experienced a detrimental response: Cholesterol and triglyceride levels went u.