Do French fries cause cancer? Can broccoli help with hot flashes? Is red wine really good for you?

When it comes to your health, there's a lot of information out there. So much that it's tough to keep up on what's good for you and what's -- well -- not so good.

So, how do you know whether to take a magazine's advice and begin drinking green tea? Should you believe the newspaper headline touting the benefits of soy? And what about that television report claiming that an apple a day can prevent prostate cancer?

"Don't believe everything you read," says Dr. Jose Rodriguez, who works at the Stanislaus County Health Services Agency clinic in Hughson. "Take these things with a grain of salt. Ask your doctor."

Even doctors say it's not easy to keep up on the latest medical studies, whether they're published in Redbook or the New England Journal of Medicine. There's so much health information out there -- in professional journals, the Internet, newspapers and magazines -- that patients often come to doctors with questions about medical studies that doctors aren't familiar with.

Sometimes, the studies don't appear in medical literature because research methods are suspect. Other times, the studies hit the news a few days before they appear in the trade publications that doctors read.

"The public may hear about it before the doctors," says Dr. Robert Chin of Cornerstone Family Practice in Modesto. "Doctors need to quickly search for it and find it."

When doctors investigate, they sometimes find that people put too much stock in a single study or that one side effect is overemphasized by the media.

Rodriguez recalls a news item on a possible link between a popular anti-inflammatory drug and meningitis.

"A lot of patients came in and said, 'Oh, my God, am I going to get meningitis?'" Rodriguez says.

Probably not, Rodriguez told them. The side effect -- a form of meningitis that can be cured with medication -- is extremely rare, he says.

Doctors expect more phone calls than usual on days when major health stories break. Headlines that grab attention often have to do with breast and ovarian cancer, says Dr. Robert Altman, an obstetrician with Sutter Gould Medical Foundation in Modesto.

"I know that when I see something like that in the newspaper, I'll get a lot of calls," he says.

Questions about what to eat -- and what not to eat -- are also common. It's no wonder. Stories on the pros and cons of one food or another often pop up in newspapers and on television.

The Modesto Bee, for example, recently carried a report of a study that said French fries and other high-carbohydrate foods contain a substance that may cause cancer.

Results of other medical studies that have made headlines: Green tea protects cells from damage due to cancer; people who regularly eat soy can reduce their risk of heart disease; broccoli and cauliflower contain a substance that can reduce menopause symptoms.

People should remember that these studies are released as researchers learn new -- and sometimes contradictory -- information about different foods and their health benefits, doctors say.

For example, some studies suggest that red-wine drinkers suffer less heart disease than other people. However, a more recent study claims that wine drinkers are richer and better educated -- factors associated with good general health -- than those who don't drink wine.

"I think the confusion exists because we don't have complete answers," Chin says. "Sometimes, what we thought was an answer will change."

Doctors are glad people are reading up on health matters.

But people should read carefully, says Dr. Chris Grover, an obstetrician with the Health Ser-vices Agency. Look for studies that examine a lot of people, he says, and for studies that don't let patients know whether they're taking a placebo.

"The rest of it is interesting," Grover says, "but you can't rely on it."

Reprinted by permission of Modesto Bee.