Comments on: Durham choosing how to measure success in their fish oil (non)trial: third time lucky?

By: Durham (non)trial fails to show any benefit to fish oil (Equazen EyeQ) supplementation « Holford Watch: Patrick Holford, nutritionism and bad science

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 16:32:59 +0000

[...] more compliant children and families, the raised expectations due to media coverage and so forth, concerns about what they chose to judge ’success’ by, other factors like improving school food, etc., the performance ‘benefit’ of those on [...]

By: jonhw

jonhw — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 12:02:05 +0000

Lateral – surely the interesting research which has been done about the role of EFAs in the body makes the pure quality of the Durham (non)trial even worse. Durham could have contributed to our knowledge of EFAs if they had done the research properly, but have instead merely muddied the waters furthers.

By the way, dubious trials (sorry, initiatives) on children do make me angry. I think that’s an entirely appropriate response; it certainly hasn’t been ameliorated by my (relatively high) EFA consumption.

By: lateral

lateral — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 18:51:15 +0000

Still gnawing away at alternative medicine you Brave New World alpha hopefuls :0)

Please tell me that you do know there IS a direct relationship between EFA’s and brain function you are not so tunnel visioned as not to acknowledge this I hope

Hey why don’t you guys give it a try – might ease the anger etc you never know, do your own trial, you don’t even have to tell each other find out for yourself how effective it is, certainly clears the cobwebs for me.

Admin edit: “certainly clears the cobwebs for me” – judging by the quality of your insights/comments, that is a very personal perception and it’s good that it comforts you to hold it.

By: jonhw

jonhw — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 14:49:19 +0000

Apparently, the Food for the Brain conference is now fully booked. So – in the absence of a media pass for us – we won’t be able to attend…

Of course, we’d be very interested to know what is discussed. If anyone’s planning on going – or finds this page googling the topics discussed after the conference – please do let us know.

By: jdc325

jdc325 — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 12:53:14 +0000

“Of course, all will become clear at this Saturday’s FFTB when Dr Portwood presents the results of the Durham studies.”
I think I just felt my heart sink.

Changing the measure of success so many times makes it clear just how seriously we should take any results announced by Dave Ford or Madeleine Portwood. Once would have been enough for me to write their conclusions off as unreliable. Measuring things two or three different ways until you find the result you like best is not science, it’s nonsense.

By: dvnutrix

dvnutrix — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 01:20:41 +0000

If I had £300+ going spare and couldn’t think of a better use for it, then, who knows. We were bitterly disappointed not to be offered comp tickets to the event, from the Holford seminar on Friday pm through to the ticker-tape, triumphalist finish on Sunday. Maybe FFTB thought we might mention their Child Survey or apply the same scrutiny to some of their other work, or that carried out in Durham.

We’re cut to the quick, but somehow, we shall survive.

By: draust

draust — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 23:51:32 +0000

Are you going along to listen, dvn? I think you should…all in the name of “research”, of course.

By: dvnutrix

dvnutrix — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 21:44:48 +0000

This is precisely why trials need to be registered and researchers need to state up front what they will be examining, how they will collect the data, and they methods they will use to analyse it.

Of course, all will become clear at this Saturday’s FFTB when Dr Portwood presents the results of the Durham studies.

By: Dr* T

Dr* T — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 21:29:16 +0000

Keep looking, Dave Ford, you’ll find that false positive somewhere!