This is fantastic, I did not know this has a Wikipedia page. As an Eastern European, I have noticed the use of this meme regularly, it's basically a recurring joke.

With that said, I think it mainly refers to actually bullcrap research that sometimes comes out of Western (and for some reason, mostly British) universities. For example, back when radio was a thing and I was listening to it in public transportation, the radio hosts would bring up these faux science papers - e.g. "Some British University found out that chocolate actually helps you lose weight. That's some great news to start off the weekend". And after a million of these papers that were most likely flawed in methodology, misinterpreted by media or simply fake, what would you expect?

The funny thing is: The "chocolate helps you loose weight" is actually quite well established and is a common strategy to use to help people loose weight, particularly people who "comfort eat" sweets.

The catch is high cocoa content chocolate (>80%) is an appetite inhibiter. So the recommendation is that people who need the "sweets/sugar" rush in certain situations to eat a piece of dark chocolate, because it gives them the "rush", but also reduces their appetite, unlike many other sweets which have been designed to want more.

Many words just to say that often this is more about the science reporting than the science.

> Some British University found out that chocolate actually helps you lose weight.

That was a hoax to expose bad science reporting, not bad science itself. So the radio fell for it too.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/05/28/410313446/wh...