4 ms·

The popular paper completely fails to to state sample size or selection. It seems 10+10 mice also were studied. Maybe a little early to call it a breakthrough..

• tinco 5y ago
  What do you mean? The sample size was 6, and they were selected on having the same symptoms. There is more information on the statistical analysis in the paper, but the conclusion is that it was significant. If this is a significant treatment of Alzheimer's then that's a breakthrough to me, what bar would you set?
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  • brokensegue 5y ago
    statistical significance is not the same as clinical significance. statistical significance in a small non-placebo controlled trial is less likely to result in a clinically meaningful result.
  • nxpnsv 5y ago
    I mean that the article on technology.org doesn't state the sample size, but still claims this has proven the effectiveness of the treatment. You would have a hard time getting a treatment cleared for public use with those numbers. If you treat 6 people and they seem to go in some direction, then you have to put that into context by having some sort of control or else it is not possible to evaluate the degree to which the improvement was in patient selection or pure chance. I think that OPs article overstates the significance at this point and should have highlighted that further studies are necessary.
  • simiones 5y ago
    > If this is a significant treatment of Alzheimer's then that's a breakthrough to me, what bar would you set? Wouldn't having some kind of proof against a placebo or at least a dose-dependent improvement be the least possible requirements to actually believe the paper found any kind of effect at all? If you randomly give 6 Alzheimer's patients an apple a day for 5 weeks, they could show improvements in cognitive tests by pure accident, especially for a disease that is known to ebb and flow.
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