By Jacob Molyneux, senior editor

Cartoon showing baby representing New Year 1905 chasing old man 1904 into history/ Wikipedia

Ah, another new year starts (not 1905, despite the illustration) and received wisdom is overturned. Sort of. Consider the widely reported news that a JAMA study has found that being overweight doesn’t seem to increase your risk of dying, or, as the Kaiser Health News headline puts it, “A Little Extra Fat Could Be Protective.”

Many news summaries do point out that severely obese people had a higher risk of dying than did people of normal weight. What the study does and does not mean is being debated, with some pointing out that the study didn’t look at whether being overweight increased consumption of health care resources, number of prescribed medications, etc. We’re sure to hear more on this.

To continue with the theme of questioning long-term assumptions, NPR’s story “Breast Cancer: What We Learned in 2012” gives a nice summary of updated guidelines for who should and shouldn’t get mammograms, including pro and con arguments, the latest research, and so on.

Some pretty cynical journalism can be found in an opinion piece in the Palm Beach (Fl.) Post, which suggests that Hillary Clinton’s blood clot is a hoax.

A New York Times piece, in giving a tidy summary of important exercise-related research from the […]