The newspaper headline summarizing research that had been reported in a medical journal read: “Study: Exercise Helps at Any Age.” The research described in the article involved a 10-year study of...

The newspaper headline summarizing research that had been reported in a medical journal read: “Study: Exercise Helps at Any Age.” The research described in the article involved a 10-year study of nearly 10,000 men—and only men. The men were given a treadmill test between 1970 and 1989. Then they were given a second treadmill test 5 years after the first test, and their health was monitored for another 5 years. Men who were judged unfit on both treadmill tests had a death rate over the next 5 years of 122 per 10,000. Men judged fit on both treadmill tests had a 5-year death rate of only 40 per 10,000. Most interestingly, men judged unfit on the first treadmill test but fit on the second had a death rate of 68 per 10,000. The benefits of exercise were even greater when only deaths from heart attacks were examined. The benefits from exercise were present across a wide range of ages—thus, the headline.

A Why is the newspaper headline for this article potentially misleading?

B Why do you think the researchers tested only men?

C Identify two different ways of obtaining evidence that you could use to decide whether the results of this study could be applied to women. One of the ways would make use of already published research, and the other way would require doing a new study.