An abstract is the short summary at the top of a study. It is also, quietly, a piece of marketing — authors want their work read and cited, so the abstract tends to lead with its most favorable framing. Reading it well means reading it slowly and out of order.
Skip the conclusion sentence first. It is the most interpreted and least raw part of the abstract. Go instead to the methods, even in their compressed form. How many people, selected how, studied for how long, compared against what? A conclusion floating above a thin method section deserves more suspicion, not less.
Watch the verbs. 'Was associated with' is not 'caused.' 'Suggests' and 'may' are honest hedges that headlines routinely delete. When an abstract is careful and the press release is confident, trust the abstract — the caution was put there on purpose by people who saw the data.
Look for the comparison. A result only means something relative to something else: a placebo group, a baseline, another condition. If you cannot find what the result was compared to, you cannot tell whether the change is meaningful or simply what happens to anyone over the same stretch of time.
Finally, separate statistical significance from size. A finding can clear a statistical bar and still be small enough to be irrelevant to daily life. The abstract may not give you the size at all, which is itself information — when the effect is impressive, authors rarely hide it. Reading honestly means noticing what is loud and what is quietly absent.