Real

We did a thing. 😬

Typo in one of the summary tables, I think.

360 out of 1000 is 36%, not 3.6%, so the absolute risk difference should be 3% (not 0.3%), which is clinically significant under their criteria (so not "little to no difference" as is currently written).

They seem to have decided that the minimal clinically important difference is 5% absolute risk difference for MACE and 1% for mortality, irrespective of follow-up time.

Though I don't see an explanation for why these were chosen.

The above article, published online on 22 June 2025 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com), has been retracted by agreement between the journal Editor-in-Chief, Y. Martin Lo; and Wiley Periodicals, LLC. The retraction has been agreed upon following an investigation into concerns raised by a third party. The investigation concluded that the article does not sufficiently present the biological rationale required to justify the use of Mendelian Randomization for the research question, as outlined in the STROBE-MR guidelines cited by the authors. Furthermore, the article contains inconsistencies in how cheese consumption is described and its reported association with chronic fatigue syndrome, including distinctions not supported by the methods or results. Additionally, the article's abstract claims an association between “breakfast affinity” and chronic fatigue syndrome, but this is not supported elsewhere in the text or figures. Finally, the article lacks details on any correction for multiple testing, despite the large number of variables examined. The authors cooperated with our investigation, explaining that these errors and omissions were inadvertent. They also provided additional data; however, this was not deemed sufficient to restore confidence in the article. As a result, the editor considers its findings unreliable. The authors disagree with the retraction.

This was just retracted.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

pubpeer.com/publications...

Remember that cruciferous vegetables and cancer study I wrote about recently?

Turns out it's even more borked than I said. Some excellent sleuthing here, the study probably needs to be retracted or extensively corrected.

You're right, I agree the p-values part is actually fine, and I fully retract that part of my criticism.

Sorry for the confusion.

This guy's takes on nutrition include the belief that seed oils cause school shootings by weakening your connection to God, and that heroin overdose is because of seed oils.

bsky.app/profile/glad...

...there is apparent cherry-picking that biases the result towards finding a beneficial effect of cruciferous vegetable consumption, and the sensitivity analysis is full of incorrect p-values.

pubpeer.com/publications...

Hey @gidmk.bsky.social, following this post, I dug into the study further, and it turns out there are a *lot* more issues with it.

Only one of the estimates used is actually what they claim it is (odds ratio for the association between highest vs lowest intake of cruciferous veg and colon cancer)..

My new favourite graph.

My thread on the Neurology paper on sweeteners & cognitive health: skywriter.blue/pages/did:pl...

And a follow-up thread on some weird patterns in the Appendix tables: skywriter.blue/pages/did:pl...

Collated by Skywriter onto a web page for easier reading!

So it could be a (butter)fly on the wall?

Cruciferous vegetables intake and risk of colon cancer: a dose–response meta-analysis Colon cancer (CC) is the third most diagnosed malignancy and second leading cause of cancer mortality globally, with ~ 1.9 million new cases and 903,859 deaths annually (Bray et al. in CA Cancer J Cli...

Cruciferous vegetables and colon cancer.

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

Great paper!

This year's Annual Review of Nutrition is out and full of really great reads.

My contribution details the broad history of nutritional guidance in America & covers the forces (science/politics/culture) that have driven the evolution of nutrition guidance.

www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

Semi-skimmed milk introduction in 1980s transformed public health outcomes, study shows A new study reveals that individuals who enjoyed whole milk during the 1970s and early 1980s had a higher risk of mortality. However, beginning in the mid-1980s, a significant change occurred.

Nice summary of our new paper in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition on milk consumption and cardiovascular disease mortality in #Norway 🥛
medicalxpress.com/news/2025-08... #nutrition #cardiology

And always fun when one of those outcomes is just "Changes in the gut microbiota."

Academic gut-health microbiome research has not really led to efficacious treatments for specific ailments that can be demonstrated in rigorous studies. But they *have* convinced the public that gut health is somehow, vaguely at the root of all illness, and food companies have profited off this.

Medlife Crisis — Using chatGPT to Poison Yourself We are on the precipice of vibe medicine. People using AI to give them health advice...who knows what the future holds as access to healthcare becomes more scarce?

I made a little video about the chap who trusted chatGPT to give him safe tips for better health. It did not go well.

Live on @nebula.tv now! If you sign up via this link, it helps me too :) If you're already a member, chatGPT said watching this will lower your cholesterol nebula.tv/videos/medli...

Screencap from The Rise of Skywalker, but instead of saying "Somehow, Palpatine returned" it says "Somehow, Prasad returned"

This image depicts a line graph showing cardiovascular mortality rates in the United States from 1933 to 2023, alongside key advancements in medicine, surgery, and public health. The y-axis represents age-standardized death rates from cardiovascular disease, ranging from 0 to 600. The x-axis represents years from 1933 to 2023. The graph starts at around 600 deaths per 100,000 people in 1933 and trends downward sharply over the decades, indicating a significant decline in mortality rates. Key advancements are marked along the timeline, including the introduction of the first heart-lung machine in 1953, the first cardiac CT scan in 1977, and the first 3D-printed heart models in 2012. Footnote information states that data begins in 1933 when all U.S. states started reporting cardiovascular mortality rates, sourced from the National Center for Heart Statistics in 2020 and the CDC Wonder in 2025. The chart is published by Saloni Dattani at Our World in Data.

New article by me!

Cardiovascular disease mortality rates have declined by around three-quarters since 1950, but we rarely hear about it.

I explore some of the reasons behind the decline.
ourworldindata.org/cardiovascul...

Saturated fat LIES (and how to see through them)

A recent study suggests saturated fat is harmless and has been unfairly demonized

Here´s what the influencers will never tell you, and how to protect your health and your loved ones
https://youtu.be/taaEOY5E5Iw

Speaking of which, how exactly are they applying the Kruskal-Wallis test to something that has been transformed into count data?

...And the fact that the variables are not normally distributed doesn't make this categorisation necessary, as there are non-parametric methods developed for this exact situation (which they clearly know about as they refer to the Kruskal-Wallis test).

This seems like a really weird way to do their statistical analysis, and they don't actually provide proper justification for it.

Transforming your variables into this trichotomy would only reduce statistical power, which is especially problematic given the small sample size to start off with...

The review of CBT shows (on four studies about 371 participants) a clinical response in the short term of 40% for CBT compared to 26% for usual care, so an advantage of just over 20% [63]. However, the interpretation of the efficacy studies of CBT is not univocal [4], and the associations of patients with CFS/ME express strong doubts about its use [76]. CBT may have even less effect if there is comorbidity with depression [77]. If this were confirmed, it would represent a serious problem because comorbidity with depression is very common, especially in the most severe forms [77]. In contrast, as HVB-BF could influence the biorhythm system [78,79,80], this aspect could be of particular interest in respect to stress, anxiety, and mood syndromes [81]; thus, in the frequent case of co-morbidity between these disorders and chronic fatigue syndromes. Compared to CBT, the HVB-BF intervention does not claim to be therapeutic, at least in the sense that it does not aim to cure but simply to provide a tool to help the person in managing the disorder. Furthermore, it entails a more autonomous and immediate role for the user, both in applying the technique during training sessions and in independently implementing it in real-life stressful situations. For this reason, it might be that it is better accepted, and this can explain the very low dropout rate achieved. Another systematic review, recently updated, conducted specifically on exercise therapy showed a possible (moderate) effect but without evident advantages compared to CBT or antidepressants [82].

The use of exercise has itself been the subject of fierce controversy. Since the publication of the previous NICE guidelines (2007) [4] and the PACE Trial (2011), the ME Association has been vehement in its argument that the use of graded, regulated and inflexible exercise therapy as a management approach for people with ME/CFS is wrong, ineffective, and can cause harm. The ME Association has called for NICE to withdraw its recommendation for the use of exercise, pointing out that research evidence has found methodological weaknesses in clinical trials proving the effectiveness of exercise and that surveys of the opinions of people who have used this therapy have shown that this treatment method can be perceived as ineffective and harmful [76]. NICE then completely revised the ME/CFS guideline and, after a full assessment of the evidence [83], withdrew its support for the use of exercise in CFS/ME. The new NICE guidelines warn against the use of exercise in Long COVID [4]. The case of Paul Garner, a professor in Liverpool, is emblematic of these controversies [84]. Garner was affected by severe CFS and Long COVID. After participating in an intensive physical exercise program, he relapsed dramatically with severe fatigue syndrome [84]. After the use of techniques to reduce symptoms and related stress, Garner slowly recovered. His journey led him to the belief that “post-exertional” malaise after an exercise plays a role in people with CFS/ME, as an automatic learnt brain response [84].

The ME patient associations, which were always against a “psychologizing” interpretation of the syndrome, turned against Garner. The purpose of a typical physical exercise training was thus considered a “psychologizing” interpretation [84]. It may be somewhat ambiguous because today physical exercise is known to produce bio-physiological consequences [85,86]. But this is understandable because in a recent survey of over 2000 people suffering from ME/CFS, most reported worsening of symptoms after physical exercise [87]. Garner himself reiterated that, while there is still a tendency to “psychologize” a problem for which there are no clear solutions, one must also recognize that excessive medicalization of the issue, reinforced by media coverage, fosters the belief in irreversible biological damage and, consequently, amplifies the impact [88]. This impasse could be addressed by adopting approaches that enable healthcare professionals to offer supportive interventions which, while not claiming to be curative, may enhance patients’ ability to manage their condition. If confirmed to yield these preliminary improvements, biofeedback could play a meaningful role in this regard. Firstly, because the role of the person suffering from the disorder can have a much more autonomous and independent role than in CBT, where, by definition, the role of the therapist is pivotal, and secondly, because the intervention could present fewer side effects than physical exercise, could be more accessible and, ultimately, would marry very well with other therapies aimed at the “physiopathogenetic” treatment of the disorder.

What's with the long rambles in the discussion about CBT, the PACE trial, NICE guidelines, and Paul Garner?

Seems rather out of place.

Bonus points for erroneously describing the Cochrane review as "recently updated."

What the heck is this gibberish?!

"Accepted and published by vixra" is about as much of an achievement as me getting this comment "accepted and published by Bluesky" lol.