5 ms·

This Cochrane review says otherwise: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6465033/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6465033/. And so does t

This Cochrane review says otherwise: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6465033/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6465033/. And so does this other review: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3928210/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3928210/.

cwkoss 3y ago
The Cochrane review is weird. It's a meta analysis that excluded all studies but one - which did find an effect: "This trial randomly assigned 146 participants to either an allicin‐containing garlic capsule (dose unspecified) or a placebo (once daily) for 12 weeks. The trial reported 24 occurrences of the common cold in the garlic intervention group compared with 65 in the placebo group (P < 0.001), resulting in fewer days of illness in the garlic group compared with the placebo group (111 versus 366). The number of days to recovery from an occurrence of the common cold was similar in both groups (4.63 versus 5.63)." Why do you interpret this as "otherwise"?
- anon____ 3y ago
  > Authors' conclusions > There is insufficient clinical trial evidence regarding the effects of garlic in preventing or treating the common cold. A single trial suggested that garlic may prevent occurrences of the common cold but more studies are needed to validate this finding. Claims of effectiveness appear to rely largely on poor‐quality evidence. If garlic is so obviously effective as the other commenter claims then there should be plenty of supporting evidence, it's not that hard or expensive to test for it, yet, this meta-analysis could only find a single good quality study that showed some effect. This is called chance. XKCD on significance (p-value): Green jelly beans linked to acne! https://xkcd.com/882/ https://xkcd.com/882/
  - cwkoss 3y ago
    Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. But there is only an absence if you choose to throw out the hundreds of "not good enough" studies indicating effects in the same direction. There is a weird contrarianism a lot of people seem to relish in when it comes to natural medicine having an effect. The reason pharmaceuticals have studies that prove effects is because there is a giant profit engine powering them and a regulatory system requiring it. It's hard and expensive to do a huge well controlled study of garlic because most modern people eat garlic as a regular part of their diet. It would be hard to find statistically significant effects for prozac if the control group used it as a seasoning.
    - melagonster 3y ago
      sorry, do it not pass the test? usually any drug should pass test.
    - anon____ 3y ago
      > It's hard and expensive to do a huge well controlled study of garlic because most modern people eat garlic as a regular part of their diet. It would be hard to find statistically significant effects for prozac if the control group used it as a seasoning. If everybody already takes this "medicine" then what's the problem? We are saved! Or... Wait a minute! How come common cold is still common?! Also, if this were true it'd be like saying air saves us from suffocating. Well, duh.
      - fatfingerd 3y ago
        Lots of correlations should exist with your chemical, and I don't see them, so if it floats it's a witch.
  - MarkusQ 3y ago
    > If garlic is so obviously effective as the other commenter claims then there should be plenty of supporting evidence, it's not that hard or expensive to test for it, yet, this meta-analysis could only find a single good quality study that showed some effect. This line of reasoning is fraught with pitfalls. An inferred absence of True Scotsmen to use in an argument by authority doesn't prove a negative. Add that to the fact that there's a selection bias in favor of studies that appear to disprove commonly held beliefs (and generally almost no interest in studies that confirm them) and you really have to use more judgement if you're trying to get at the truth and not just win the argument. https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k5094 https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k5094
culi 3y ago
The first Cochrane "review" only looks at a single study which uses Allicin powder at 180mg not whole garlic: > In this updated review, we identified eight trials as potentially relevant from our searches. Again, only one trial met the inclusion criteria The second link is not specific to garlic and the part where garlic is briefly mentioned cites the original review and the same, single, study. The review's conclusion is, imo, valid. It's that *there is not enough evidence to say there's an effect*. Your comment, and the way people tend to utilize these reviews, clearly conflates the concept of "not enough evidence" with "evidence against".
- anon____ 3y ago
  > Your comment, and the way people tend to utilize these reviews, clearly conflates the concept of "not enough evidence" with "evidence against". When there's plenty of opportunity to search for and find evidence, and multiple researchers do try, and repeatedly fail to find evidence (or they have mild "success" every one try out of ten, by pure luck, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_dredging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_dredging), that strongly suggests that there's no real effect. Especially when you know that these people don't only do this with garlic, but with every single piece of spice, herb and other plant material you can imagine. Yes, some of them are effective; contrary to what many people believe (and you can read this in this thread, too), most, if not all our medicine is of "natural" (plant or animal) origin. Yet, at the same time, most "natural" stuff is not medicine. Why cling to the ones we can't prove effective however we try, when there are many more candidates?
  - culi 3y ago
    > When there's plenty of opportunity to search for and find evidence, and multiple researchers do try, and repeatedly fail to find evidence (or they have mild "success" every one try out of ten, by pure luck You're doing it too! Again, this review looked at a SINGLE study. They discounted other studies. Those other studies were not taken into account at all. Those other studies didn't "fail to find evidence"
    - 3y ago
20after4 3y ago
I never said garlic was useful for common cold. Antibiotics aren't very useful against viral infections.

cwkoss 3y ago

The Cochrane review is weird. It's a meta analysis that excluded all studies but one - which did find an effect: "This trial randomly assigned 146 participants to either an allicin‐containing garlic capsule (dose unspecified) or a placebo (once daily) for 12 weeks. The trial reported 24 occurrences of the common cold in the garlic intervention group compared with 65 in the placebo group (P < 0.001), resulting in fewer days of illness in the garlic group compared with the placebo group (111 versus 366). The number of days to recovery from an occurrence of the common cold was similar in both groups (4.63 versus 5.63)." Why do you interpret this as "otherwise"?

anon____ 3y ago
> Authors' conclusions > There is insufficient clinical trial evidence regarding the effects of garlic in preventing or treating the common cold. A single trial suggested that garlic may prevent occurrences of the common cold but more studies are needed to validate this finding. Claims of effectiveness appear to rely largely on poor‐quality evidence. If garlic is so obviously effective as the other commenter claims then there should be plenty of supporting evidence, it's not that hard or expensive to test for it, yet, this meta-analysis could only find a single good quality study that showed some effect. This is called chance. XKCD on significance (p-value): Green jelly beans linked to acne! https://xkcd.com/882/ https://xkcd.com/882/
- cwkoss 3y ago
  Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. But there is only an absence if you choose to throw out the hundreds of "not good enough" studies indicating effects in the same direction. There is a weird contrarianism a lot of people seem to relish in when it comes to natural medicine having an effect. The reason pharmaceuticals have studies that prove effects is because there is a giant profit engine powering them and a regulatory system requiring it. It's hard and expensive to do a huge well controlled study of garlic because most modern people eat garlic as a regular part of their diet. It would be hard to find statistically significant effects for prozac if the control group used it as a seasoning.
  - melagonster 3y ago
    sorry, do it not pass the test? usually any drug should pass test.
  - anon____ 3y ago
    > It's hard and expensive to do a huge well controlled study of garlic because most modern people eat garlic as a regular part of their diet. It would be hard to find statistically significant effects for prozac if the control group used it as a seasoning. If everybody already takes this "medicine" then what's the problem? We are saved! Or... Wait a minute! How come common cold is still common?! Also, if this were true it'd be like saying air saves us from suffocating. Well, duh.
    - fatfingerd 3y ago
      Lots of correlations should exist with your chemical, and I don't see them, so if it floats it's a witch.
- MarkusQ 3y ago
  > If garlic is so obviously effective as the other commenter claims then there should be plenty of supporting evidence, it's not that hard or expensive to test for it, yet, this meta-analysis could only find a single good quality study that showed some effect. This line of reasoning is fraught with pitfalls. An inferred absence of True Scotsmen to use in an argument by authority doesn't prove a negative. Add that to the fact that there's a selection bias in favor of studies that appear to disprove commonly held beliefs (and generally almost no interest in studies that confirm them) and you really have to use more judgement if you're trying to get at the truth and not just win the argument. https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k5094 https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k5094

culi 3y ago

The first Cochrane "review" only looks at a single study which uses Allicin powder at 180mg not whole garlic: > In this updated review, we identified eight trials as potentially relevant from our searches. Again, only one trial met the inclusion criteria The second link is not specific to garlic and the part where garlic is briefly mentioned cites the original review and the same, single, study. The review's conclusion is, imo, valid. It's that *there is not enough evidence to say there's an effect*. Your comment, and the way people tend to utilize these reviews, clearly conflates the concept of "not enough evidence" with "evidence against".

anon____ 3y ago
> Your comment, and the way people tend to utilize these reviews, clearly conflates the concept of "not enough evidence" with "evidence against". When there's plenty of opportunity to search for and find evidence, and multiple researchers do try, and repeatedly fail to find evidence (or they have mild "success" every one try out of ten, by pure luck, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_dredging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_dredging), that strongly suggests that there's no real effect. Especially when you know that these people don't only do this with garlic, but with every single piece of spice, herb and other plant material you can imagine. Yes, some of them are effective; contrary to what many people believe (and you can read this in this thread, too), most, if not all our medicine is of "natural" (plant or animal) origin. Yet, at the same time, most "natural" stuff is not medicine. Why cling to the ones we can't prove effective however we try, when there are many more candidates?
- culi 3y ago
  > When there's plenty of opportunity to search for and find evidence, and multiple researchers do try, and repeatedly fail to find evidence (or they have mild "success" every one try out of ten, by pure luck You're doing it too! Again, this review looked at a SINGLE study. They discounted other studies. Those other studies were not taken into account at all. Those other studies didn't "fail to find evidence"
  - 3y ago

20after4 3y ago

I never said garlic was useful for common cold. Antibiotics aren't very useful against viral infections.