4 ms·

First and last author both work for a company that sells saffron products for medicinal use.

• cfcf14 5y ago
  In addition to this, their company (or its parent) funded the trial too.
  • msandford 5y ago
    In fairness it's not a trial, it's a meta-analysis. So people looking at papers and creating a spreadsheet or something. They can be pretty cheap, rather than the billion or two it takes to get a new drug to market. I haven't read the paper but the absolute best outcome would be that they list all the studies they evaluate for inclusion (which is most of the work, finding and evaluating) so that others could perform similar analyses with a big head start.
• emrvb 5y ago
  Not only that, but the analysis seems to be based on rather small sample studies, all based in Iran, the worlds largest saffron exporting country. At least they state this caveat themselves "Larger clinical trials, conducted by research teams outside of Iran, with long-term follow-ups are needed before firm conclusions can be made regarding saffron's efficacy and safety for treating depressive symptoms." This is not news worthy at all.
  • forum_ghost 5y ago
    to their credit, saffron is a decently popular depression remedy in Iran, even today. Avicenna described saffron's anti-depressant effects literally a thousand years ago, in a textbook that remained the standard medical dogma even in the western universities until 17th century. a thousand years long track record, this is definitely worth investigating deeper.
• numeri 5y ago
  As much as I love saffron, and thus wouldn't mind if it were proven to have health benefits, this is definitely not science that inspires confidence...