Did you read about the new study showing chocolate helps you lose weight? I'm sure regular readers here weren't taken in, but you might want to show something to your friends who keep up with health "news." The authors of that study just revealed that it was a hoax to shine a light on the sloppiness of the health media. The study was real and the authors didn't lie about anything but their credentials, they just did a poor experiment, sent out press releases and paid the impressive-sounding journal The International Archives of Medicine 600 euros to publish it.
The study really did show greater weight loss in the chocolate group than the non-chocolate group and the control group, but...
In other words, the weight loss results could have been luck--for instance, the women might have been on a certain place in their cycles. If the result had been lower blood sugar, some people in the control group might have been getting a cold or under stress--both things raise blood sugar. As for sleep and well-being, a thousand different things are more likely to affect those than a few bites of chocolate.
But the reporters--and even the prestigious sounding International Archives of Medicine, which purports to "rigorously review" articles--asked about none of this. Even a "fact checker" from Shape didn't ask for many details about the study. Quite a bit of nutritional science is like getting a diploma from a mail-order college in the Caribbean: answer a few questions, write a check, and you're official. Health reporters recycle the articles until junk science becomes conventional wisdom, the same conventional wisdom you'll get from most medical professionals, because that's mostly where they (in general) learn about nutrition.
But...the chocolate is still good for you, isn't it? They selected bitter chocolate because it's a favorite of "whole food fanatics." Never mind that chocolate is highly processed--you can't even make a proper chocolate bar at home--or that the stuff they used (81% is bitter and chalky as aspirin) isn't the milky, sugary junk food the magazines and web sites showed.
For the full story, read this: http://io9.com/i-fooled-millions-into-thinking-chocolate-helps-weight-1707251800.
The study really did show greater weight loss in the chocolate group than the non-chocolate group and the control group, but...
Here’s a dirty little science secret: If you measure a large number of things about a small number of people, you are almost guaranteed to get a “statistically significant” result. Our study included 18 different measurements—weight, cholesterol, sodium, blood protein levels, sleep quality, well-being, etc.—from 15 people. (One subject was dropped.) That study design is a recipe for false positives.... With our 18 measurements, we had a 60% chance of getting some“significant” result with 0.05. (The measurements weren’t independent, so it could be even higher.) The game was stacked in our favor. It’s called p-hacking—fiddling with your experimental design and data to push p values under 0.05—and it’s a big problem. (Emphasis added.)
In other words, the weight loss results could have been luck--for instance, the women might have been on a certain place in their cycles. If the result had been lower blood sugar, some people in the control group might have been getting a cold or under stress--both things raise blood sugar. As for sleep and well-being, a thousand different things are more likely to affect those than a few bites of chocolate.
But the reporters--and even the prestigious sounding International Archives of Medicine, which purports to "rigorously review" articles--asked about none of this. Even a "fact checker" from Shape didn't ask for many details about the study. Quite a bit of nutritional science is like getting a diploma from a mail-order college in the Caribbean: answer a few questions, write a check, and you're official. Health reporters recycle the articles until junk science becomes conventional wisdom, the same conventional wisdom you'll get from most medical professionals, because that's mostly where they (in general) learn about nutrition.
But...the chocolate is still good for you, isn't it? They selected bitter chocolate because it's a favorite of "whole food fanatics." Never mind that chocolate is highly processed--you can't even make a proper chocolate bar at home--or that the stuff they used (81% is bitter and chalky as aspirin) isn't the milky, sugary junk food the magazines and web sites showed.
For the full story, read this: http://io9.com/i-fooled-millions-into-thinking-chocolate-helps-weight-1707251800.
Comments
I'm beginning to think statistics needs to be a required course to get a degree in anything.
I'm not much of a fruit eater, but even like a few service berries right off the bush when they turn black. Maybe rose hips and choke berries (aronia), which are prolific in my yard) could be used for a vodka infusion. I don't know about the choke berries since they fall off the bush, but even the birds won't eat the rose hips. I guess they prefer seeds to fruit--kind of like humans.
In Russia a sea buckthorn is considered to be a very, very important medical plant, mostly due to a buckthorn oil which is used for hard to treat burns, trophic ulcers, radioactive burns. The oil people derive from seeds, but tasty berries contain it too. The oil and berries are used in many cases when their anty-inflammatory properties could be desirable. A vodka infusion made with the berries is a nice drink, better than made with cranberries. It is extremely hard to remove berries from a wild plant without a tree damage, people mostly deal with a cultivated variety which was changed from a wild one in a way which made a berries collection possible, or wait till frosty weather which makes possible to detatch berries from a branch without crushing. There are frozen buckhorn (oblepikha) berries for sale in some ethnic eastern European stores in US.
As you probably know, rose hips are a common ingredient in fruity teas here, too, especially up in Boulder at Celestial Seasonings where they make a lot of funky teas.
I had no idea sea buckthorn was medicinal. I just knew it as a hardy xeriscape plant.