You’ve seen the headlines: “Drug cuts heart attack risk by 50%.” It sounds dramatic. Reassuring. Urgent. But in this episode, I show you exactly how that single percentage is designed to mislead you.

I break down the difference between Relative Risk and Absolute Risk — and why one makes for great marketing while the other tells you what actually matters to your life. We walk through real numbers together, translate medical jargon into plain English, and expose how a “50% reduction” can quietly mean a 1% benefit.

Then we go deeper.

I explain why a result can be “statistically significant” and still clinically useless. We unpack the famous p-value (and why it doesn’t mean what most people think it means). I teach you how to read a Confidence Interval like a pro — including the crucial “Line of No Effect” that determines whether a study actually worked or quietly failed.

And finally, I give you the most practical tool of all: the Number Needed to Treat. This is the number that answers the only question that really matters:

How many people have to take this drug for one person to benefit?

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by medical research, confused by health news, or skeptical of miracle claims but unsure why — this episode is your toolkit.

By the end, you won’t just read headlines.

You’ll decode them.

Dr. Marbas Substack: https://drlauriemarbas.substack.com/

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