Like it or not, who paid for the study, and who stands to benefit are just as important as the study results. I’ve even seen study results where the data itself shows the opposite of the conclusions of the study. Thank you for reading this far, now come to my secret volcano lair and give me all your money.
There’s entire governmental office for wasting money brains and time on this shit https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Ayush
and why do you ask, this is Modi’s doing
The Washington Post noted the efforts behind the revival of ayurveda as a part of the ruling party’s rhetoric of restoring India’s past glory to achieve prosperity in the future.[4]
nationalists and pseudoscience, name a more iconic duo
Turmeric is great… in a curry
What is it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turmeric
Almost all plants have some effect on the body; some people think that this one is particularly powerful.
Also, there’s the placebo effect; if you think something is good for you it can actually help, even if it’s just a sugar pill.
The placebo effect doesn’t help. It’s just noise in the data collection process. It’s particularly problematic with human trials that rely on subjective evidence. Humans have a bias that actions have effects, even when they don’t (gamblers blowing on dice, wishing on a star etc).
Any intervention will have people think that the outcome has changed because of the intervention. This doesn’t mean the placebo effect helped, it just altered the recorded outcome. If it was a device was used to make the measurement, rather than human opinion, we just call it noise/error.
It’s a common misconception that the placebo effect does something. It does nothing other than artificially increase subjective measurements. Placebo effect is stronger in very subjective medical conditions such as pain, shiny packaging and brand names are reported to provide greater pain relief. Such medicines are so tightly regulated the formulation and supply leaves very little opportunity for medicines to actually have an effect. You don’t see the same effect when it comes to reducing the size of cancer tumours or altering directly measurable quantities.
Doctors aren’t allowed to prescribe placebos in the UK. Because it’s dangerous and a source of corruption. Such as King Charles selling homeopathic services to the NHS. Doctors do recommend such services, they do this primarily to dismiss patients and their issues.
As pain is aubjective. The subject believing their pain to be improved is an effect.
For a lot of medical science now, we look not only at medical outcomes but patient perceived outcomes.
Scientists are great at quantifying outcomes and risk evaluation mathematically. People are bad at using that data to decide on treatment, so depend on healthcare professionals to guide them. The communication skills of the healthcare provider are just as important as their clinical skill in many cases. In some cases, even more so.
If someone is happier with their objectively worse outcome, which is the better outcome?
otoh, plenty of folks wear copper bracelets or drink a little apple cider vinegar in the morning without baleful results.
You’re correct, a placebo isn’t a cure, but if it helps someone think they are healthier without causing damage, why not?
edit = to be explicit I mean things that people use that aren’t expensive or dangerous.
Is there somewhere I can read more about this in non technical terms? I never knew that about the placebo effect.
A spice used in Indian cuisine. It’s intensely yellow due to curcumin, a compound that has miraculous property of causing false positives in about any cell assay (ie it seems like it does something, but really it decomposes/is fluorescent/damages cell wall/clumps up/pulls metal ions where they shouldn’t be/forms hydrogen peroxide where it shouldn’t be, all of which can look like some kind of activity when looking at cells, but it is not so)
Also it’s completely insoluble in water and shredded by liver in minutes, so it’s physically impossible for it to be active in vivo (can’t do shit if it’s not there). It’s great for churning out bad science tho
It is used in ayurveda, and some proponents of ayurveda want to prove that it cures literally everything, and its behaviour in cell assays makes it seem so at least as long as you don’t look too closely
calling it a spice feels generous, it’s yellow food colouring powder.
sure technically it affects flavour but so does eating out of a different bowl…
I once severely misjudged the amount needed I’m some rice I made. I can assure you, it does have flavour.
Does turmeric need to be a miraculous panacea? Isn’t it enough that it’s delicious?
I’d greatly appreciate a miraculous panacea for my rheumatoid arthritis, especially one available at turmeric’s price point. I’ve gone through a gamut of biologics that my immune system builds resistance against. Rinvoq’s doing pretty good at taking the edge off currently, but I still flare up if triggered. It’s also running a $6,000 wholesale a month… thank [deity] for insurance and copay assistance.
Delicious food is great, but alleviating my pain and fatigue during an RA flare? Manna from heaven.
mandatory quick recap on PAINS https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/curcumin-will-waste-your-time
