What’s the problem this guide is addressing?

Every month there are dozens of news reports about medical breakthroughs and wonder drugs. The internet is cluttered with adverts and chat-room conversations testifying to ‘amazing’ benefits.

These stories offer hope of finding something that will do more than conventional medicines can. But the evidence for many of these treatment claims is unreliable. This leaves people unsure about what to try and where they can draw the line: how can we make sense of ‘cure’ stories? How can we tell the beneficial from the bogus, the likely from the doubtful?