4 ms·

All the comments here are slagging this off. Here’s the methodology: > The statin study, which took place at Hammersmith Hospital, focused on 60 patients who h

All the comments here are slagging this off. Here’s the methodology: > The statin study, which took place at Hammersmith Hospital, focused on 60 patients who had all come off the drugs in the past due to severe side effects. They were given 12 bottles - four contained a month's worth of statins, four a month's worth of dummy pills and four were empty. Every day for a year they would score, from zero to 100, how bad their symptoms were. The study showed an average score of: 8 in those taking no tablets 15.4 while taking dummy pills 16.3 while taking statins > The Imperial researchers said 90% of the severity of their symptoms was present when the volunteers were taking dummy pills they thought could be a statin. Why is this “utter bullshit”? Looks like a reasonable conclusion to me?

kurko 6y ago
Not OP, and I don't think it's utter bullshit, but I can see 2 serious problems: 1. small sample, 60 people is not enough to draw great conclusions. 2. they should have included people who had never taken statins before. It's quite possible that the brain was re-generating the side-effects because it was used to before by association. They can't even have a control group for that.
- bluGill 6y ago
  Problem is that adding those who have never had statins would be unethical. You don't give medication to those who don't need it, and you don't withhold it from those who don't. This was done on those who needed it but found the side effects too bad, which makes it ethical to study.
boomboomsubban 6y ago
It's bullshit because they experienced it and there's no way they could fall for something like the placebo effect. This just seems to be the mindset of most people, and though there has been a bit of research suggesting some people are more susceptible to the placebo effect I've never seen something showing people are commonly immune to it.
rozab 6y ago
Isn't that description completely incomprehensible? It seems to be saying (in a roundabout way) that each participant was part of all 3 groups, with them taking the drug, placebo and nothing for a third of the year. There's a reason studies don't do this, it adds a great deal of complexity and room for error. It's also not at all clear what symptoms the participants are rating. Are they symptoms of their underlying condition, common side effects of the drug, or side effects they had experienced previously?
- boomboomsubban 6y ago
  >It's also not at all clear what symptoms the participants are rating I don't see how this matters? If the symptoms were the cause of the underlying condition, they would show up roughly as often between "no pill" and "placebo."

kurko 6y ago

Not OP, and I don't think it's utter bullshit, but I can see 2 serious problems: 1. small sample, 60 people is not enough to draw great conclusions. 2. they should have included people who had never taken statins before. It's quite possible that the brain was re-generating the side-effects because it was used to before by association. They can't even have a control group for that.

bluGill 6y ago
Problem is that adding those who have never had statins would be unethical. You don't give medication to those who don't need it, and you don't withhold it from those who don't. This was done on those who needed it but found the side effects too bad, which makes it ethical to study.

boomboomsubban 6y ago

It's bullshit because they experienced it and there's no way they could fall for something like the placebo effect. This just seems to be the mindset of most people, and though there has been a bit of research suggesting some people are more susceptible to the placebo effect I've never seen something showing people are commonly immune to it.

rozab 6y ago

Isn't that description completely incomprehensible? It seems to be saying (in a roundabout way) that each participant was part of all 3 groups, with them taking the drug, placebo and nothing for a third of the year. There's a reason studies don't do this, it adds a great deal of complexity and room for error. It's also not at all clear what symptoms the participants are rating. Are they symptoms of their underlying condition, common side effects of the drug, or side effects they had experienced previously?

boomboomsubban 6y ago
>It's also not at all clear what symptoms the participants are rating I don't see how this matters? If the symptoms were the cause of the underlying condition, they would show up roughly as often between "no pill" and "placebo."