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One reason why researchers inappropriately link their findings to a disease is because grant agencies don't really fund basic research anymore. So if you want to do basic research, you just think of the most relevant disease and spin the impact of your results when reporting back to the grant agency and to the press. The actual paper won't actual make any grand claims, except something at the end of the discussion that's like "oh and this will let us figure out MS."

The problem is that basic research really is crucial to understanding many diseases, but you can't get it funded because it's not sexy enough (or really, because funding has been cut so much in most countries). So on one hand, the claims that you see are definitely blown out of proportion, but it doesn't mean that something useful wasn't learned. You'd have to read the paper to really know.