5 ms·

It bums me out that HN readers just read and respond to the headline without analyzing the actual content. My immediate reaction to medical headlines is always

by evmar 11y ago

It bums me out that HN readers just read and respond to the headline without analyzing the actual content. My immediate reaction to medical headlines is always to wonder "why should I believe this"? In this particular case the paper tests four people, one of whom is described as only "moderately depressed" and who lost his "craving for smoking, dipping, cocaine and alcohol" with the treatment. I am very skeptical of this magical cure. (From there, I might also add that the publishing info itself is pretty sketchy (author appears to be some random dude self-publishing, paper cites his own website a lot), but it's a bit ad hominem to rely on this. It's also entirely possible that this hypothesis is correct but I don't think this paper is a good first step on proving that.)

bognition 11y ago
This is exactly right. A quick search for the journal reveals that anything published in it should be taken with a HUGE grain of salt as "The journal's policy placed full responsibility for the integrity, precision and accuracy of publications on the authors, rather than peer reviewers or the editor" [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_Hypotheses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_Hypotheses
quizotic 11y ago
Also, the date on the publication is Mar 20, 2006. Seems odd that there wouldn't be more recent research.
- philipov 11y ago
  I wouldn't read too much into that. If you can't patent it, good luck getting any sort of medical research funded.
amelius 11y ago
I have to agree with you that the approach taken by the researcher is not the best one. However... the cure that they propose is so simple and low-cost, and its effects are supposedly so rapid, that it is almost stupid to not try it.
- elipsey 11y ago
  I have encoutered this argument a lot, and this is why I think it's harmful: The problem with this is that unsubstantiated cures, even really cheap ones apparently harmless ones, have an opportunity cost in time and effort, and the number of them that exist is almost unbounded. I have heard similar arguments about a hundred fad diets, a hundred nutritional supplements, going vegan/paleo/gluten-free/etc, meditation, homeopathy, accupunture, changing religions, "spacing out vacinations", and so on. Some of this stuff may actually be cheap and effective, but how do you choose? There are only so many hours in the day and every minute we spend chasing the next dubious fad cure is a minute we can't use to cook and eat healthy food, sleep enough, excercise, take care of our teeth, or go to a doctor. Furthermore, some of these things have negative side effects, even if those may only be apparent in aggregate (e.g. delaying vacinations). Call me when it replicates in a decent study.
sbierwagen 11y ago
Another titanic red flag is this: The possibility that magnesium deficiency is the cause of most major depression and related mental health problems including IQ loss and addiction is enormously important to public health and is recommended for immediate further study. This guy concluded that all depression is caused by lack of magnesium from a sample size of 4 people?
Balgair 11y ago
Here here. As it is a snow day, I can't get the other articles as well or do a good search (Fallout4 for me, oh shucks). That said, just because there are only 4 people in a study does not mean that it is a bad article. I agree that the guy is maybe a quack, but that can be said of a lot of scientists too. Truth has a different metric than the opinions of people. That there is only 4 subjects is not all that off in biology, especially in humans. For instance, in the hearing pathway, there is a single layer of neurons that helps mediate the location of low frequency noises in mammals. The Nature Letter that revealed this was done on 4 cells total. The difficulty of the experiment was extreme. Sectioning brains at essentially random, probing neurons perfectly from the input and output neurons to those special neurons, all at body temperature, and in mature animals, it took that team 10 years for 4 neurons. ALL of them now are bakers in Germany; they quit science. So, though the guy may be a quack, and though this experiment may not be as hard, it does not mean he is necessarily wrong.
- bkmartin 11y ago
  Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Any depression study with only 4 people is not extraordinary considering the pervasiveness of the issue in society.

by evmar 11y ago

bognition 11y ago

This is exactly right. A quick search for the journal reveals that anything published in it should be taken with a HUGE grain of salt as "The journal's policy placed full responsibility for the integrity, precision and accuracy of publications on the authors, rather than peer reviewers or the editor" [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_Hypotheses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_Hypotheses

quizotic 11y ago

Also, the date on the publication is Mar 20, 2006. Seems odd that there wouldn't be more recent research.

philipov 11y ago
I wouldn't read too much into that. If you can't patent it, good luck getting any sort of medical research funded.

amelius 11y ago

I have to agree with you that the approach taken by the researcher is not the best one. However... the cure that they propose is so simple and low-cost, and its effects are supposedly so rapid, that it is almost stupid to not try it.

elipsey 11y ago
I have encoutered this argument a lot, and this is why I think it's harmful: The problem with this is that unsubstantiated cures, even really cheap ones apparently harmless ones, have an opportunity cost in time and effort, and the number of them that exist is almost unbounded. I have heard similar arguments about a hundred fad diets, a hundred nutritional supplements, going vegan/paleo/gluten-free/etc, meditation, homeopathy, accupunture, changing religions, "spacing out vacinations", and so on. Some of this stuff may actually be cheap and effective, but how do you choose? There are only so many hours in the day and every minute we spend chasing the next dubious fad cure is a minute we can't use to cook and eat healthy food, sleep enough, excercise, take care of our teeth, or go to a doctor. Furthermore, some of these things have negative side effects, even if those may only be apparent in aggregate (e.g. delaying vacinations). Call me when it replicates in a decent study.

sbierwagen 11y ago

Another titanic red flag is this: The possibility that magnesium deficiency is the cause of most major depression and related mental health problems including IQ loss and addiction is enormously important to public health and is recommended for immediate further study. This guy concluded that all depression is caused by lack of magnesium from a sample size of 4 people?

Balgair 11y ago

Here here. As it is a snow day, I can't get the other articles as well or do a good search (Fallout4 for me, oh shucks). That said, just because there are only 4 people in a study does not mean that it is a bad article. I agree that the guy is maybe a quack, but that can be said of a lot of scientists too. Truth has a different metric than the opinions of people. That there is only 4 subjects is not all that off in biology, especially in humans. For instance, in the hearing pathway, there is a single layer of neurons that helps mediate the location of low frequency noises in mammals. The Nature Letter that revealed this was done on 4 cells total. The difficulty of the experiment was extreme. Sectioning brains at essentially random, probing neurons perfectly from the input and output neurons to those special neurons, all at body temperature, and in mature animals, it took that team 10 years for 4 neurons. ALL of them now are bakers in Germany; they quit science. So, though the guy may be a quack, and though this experiment may not be as hard, it does not mean he is necessarily wrong.

bkmartin 11y ago
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Any depression study with only 4 people is not extraordinary considering the pervasiveness of the issue in society.