Why You Should Never Trust a Percentage in a Headline

The Habit Healers · Mar 4, 2026 · 9m

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…