Exactly Chu, there is nothing even remotely scientific about these studies or the Huffington reporting of the so called results. It is all about sensationalism and money. Put "Die" in a headline with a famous name or two and you are golden.
Didn't people learn from the past mistakes? Remember margarine used to be better than butter until they found out that actually butter was far healthier and the margarine with transfers ended up pulled from the market there were so bad? Or how about the latest that red meat is actually looking to have no increased risks, and it is processed meats with salts and other chemicals added that cause the problems. Now high fructose corn syrup is a killer, but cane sugar not so much. Gee I can't wait for the next study so I can radically change my lifestyle again.
You are not accurately representing things at all. For example, with butter and margarine, neither has ever been regarded as health food by modern mainstream experts. It is a question of which is worse, and it turns out that each one is worse than the other in some ways. That is, there are some bad aspects of butter that are not in margarine, and there are some bad aspects of margarine that are not in butter. Even that is not complete, as not all margarines are made the same (just compare lists of ingredients at your local supermarket for a start).
In the case of sugar and corn sweetener, again, neither one has ever been regarded as health food by modern mainstream experts. There has been some suggestion lately that corn sweetener may be worse for you, but that does not mean that sugar is magically now okay and that you should eat piles of it with every meal. Both add calories, and neither one tends to have much nutritional value, so they are, at best, "empty calories", and at worst, one or both might do something more.
With meats, they are now thinking that processed meats are typically worse for you than fresh meat. But that does not alter the fact that vegetarians, on average, live longer than meat eaters, and that vegans live longer than vegetarians who eat eggs and dairy. That would seem to suggest that animal products are not healthy in the long run, though maybe it is just God smiting animal eaters more on a whim to confuse people.
Of course, if one does things in moderation, one is likely to avoid the worst possible effects of any particular substance, but that does not mean that they won't do some harm. And moderation isn't what the Atkins diet is about.
