A study released this past September made headlines after finding that honey was just as bad for you as artificial sweeteners such as high-fructose corn syrup . But while many took the study’s findings as fact, Healthcare Triage pointed out that, like many health-related studies, this research contained a few quite serious limitations.

According to Healthcare Triage, most of what we know on the nutrition of food additives is based on small, flawed, and grossly oversold studies. For example, although the September study on natural and artificial sweeteners was based on a randomized control trial, one of the strongest types of scientific methods, the actual trial consisted of only 55 people and lasted only two weeks.

This study is not alone in both its lack of participants and short length. A 2011 systematic review of studies on artifical sweeteners found that of all the studies reviewed, only 13 lasted longer than a week and involved at least 10 people. What's more, the review found that 10 of the 13 studies were of poor quality anyway. In reality, it’s also very difficult to control people’s diet, especially when it comes to sugar intake, seeing as sugar is added to nearly everything we eat. Often, what volunteers report eating does not actually represent their daily nutritional intake.

Ultimately, Healthcare Triage is not trying to sway our views on sweetener additives, but it does hope to encourage the public to interpret health care studies presented by the media more carefully. Due to funding difficulties and ulterior motives, we will probably continue to see flawed health care studies, amd it's up to us to draw our own conclusions smartly.