Next time your doctor gives you lifestyle advice – tell him he's wasting his time.

You were an international research group. They examined 379 lifestyle tips. British doctors were asked to donate, and found that only 3 percent of them actually gave any effect.

– And then we were still being generous, because we didn't want to be accused of being too harsh in our assessment. In fact, you want evidence that the advice itself leads to change in the patient, and that the change lasts long enough. and It does produce the desired health effects. And the studies are of sufficient quality, of course. But here we assessed only the presence of evidence from studies showing that the advice had a positive effect, either through lifestyle change or disease reduction, compared with groups that were not advised at all – although there is a risk of measurement errors.

Investigating whether lifestyle interventions actually lead to better health is difficult, isn't it?