Miracle foods: a special report

“Curry could save your life.” “Beetroot can fight dementia.” “Asthma risk linked to burgers.” Every day there’s a new crop of seemingly life-changing headlines about how the food we eat affects our health.

Food stories are one of the most common topics that Behind the Headlines covers, accounting for about one in five of our appraisals. Often, news stories have claimed that foods can offer remarkable health benefits, such as fighting disease or slowing ageing.

Our special report: Miracle foods: myths and the media (PDF, 2Mb) looks at some of the foods that regularly appear in the news and examines whether the reports match the scientific evidence behind them.