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A better study would be: 1) Control group with nothing (the 'waitlist' group) in this study 2) Hot Yoga 3) Hot, no yoga (sauna?) 4) Yoga, no hot 5) Other c

by patmcc 3y ago

A better study would be: 1) Control group with nothing (the 'waitlist' group) in this study 2) Hot Yoga 3) Hot, no yoga (sauna?) 4) Yoga, no hot 5) Other cardio/weight training edit: not sure I'm being snarky enough. This study is worthless, anyone familiar with depression would have predicted the group with any exercise-related intervention would do much better than the control.

jfengel 3y ago
Great! That would take only about 200 subjects. Though I'm sure you'd rather have a more meaningful sample size, so let's say 2,000 subjects. You'll need to recruit therapists to evaluate them all, before and after. That shouldn't cost more than about a million dollars or so. I'm pretty sure there are also doctors involved at various points in the process. I imagine you'll want medical checks before and after, just to make sure nobody dies on your watch. That shouldn't cost more than another million or so. Let's get applying for grants!
- patmcc 3y ago
  This 'study' is little more than an ad for hot yoga. There's zero reason to think, given the article and study, that there's anything specific about hot yoga that's doing the work here. So, yes, wait until you can actually do useful research, instead of running forward with bullshit. That doesn't always mean 2000 subjects and millions of dollars, but actually having a useful and novel result would be a nice change. They could have even compared the results against the (many) replicated studies on exercise and its effectiveness in reducing depression. Or the (few) studies on sauna usage.
- svnt 3y ago
  So should we instead do smaller projects $150k at a time until we get to $1 million total spent and have proven nothing?
- raincole 3y ago
  Proper studies are expensive so let's just don't do it. - HN By the way, proper education, proper medical research, proper workplace safety... are all expensive. Big news I know.

by patmcc 3y ago

jfengel 3y ago

Great! That would take only about 200 subjects. Though I'm sure you'd rather have a more meaningful sample size, so let's say 2,000 subjects. You'll need to recruit therapists to evaluate them all, before and after. That shouldn't cost more than about a million dollars or so. I'm pretty sure there are also doctors involved at various points in the process. I imagine you'll want medical checks before and after, just to make sure nobody dies on your watch. That shouldn't cost more than another million or so. Let's get applying for grants!

patmcc 3y ago
This 'study' is little more than an ad for hot yoga. There's zero reason to think, given the article and study, that there's anything specific about hot yoga that's doing the work here. So, yes, wait until you can actually do useful research, instead of running forward with bullshit. That doesn't always mean 2000 subjects and millions of dollars, but actually having a useful and novel result would be a nice change. They could have even compared the results against the (many) replicated studies on exercise and its effectiveness in reducing depression. Or the (few) studies on sauna usage.
svnt 3y ago
So should we instead do smaller projects $150k at a time until we get to $1 million total spent and have proven nothing?
raincole 3y ago
Proper studies are expensive so let's just don't do it. - HN By the way, proper education, proper medical research, proper workplace safety... are all expensive. Big news I know.