The art of the absence of evidence

Barrett Newman’s Voice of Fire: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_Fire#/media/File:Voice_of_Fire_photo.jpg

This study comes from Ian Lane who asked whether the authors were, “entitled to believe that their conclusion is ‘true’.” Read More...

The HMB-FA randomized trial: Not Sure If….

Wow. It finally happened.

On first glance, I haven’t seen data this promising about a supplement since…ever. HMB (beta-hydroxy-beta-metahybutyrate) has been so _unpromising_ since its emergence back in the late 1990’s/early 2000’s, that I had basically stopped reading about it. And then Andrew Vigotsky mentioned me on Twitter and…well, consider me initially genuinely excited. Which is rare. Like, the next thing that might happen is a rain of frogs. But then I dug a little bit. Read More...

Yummy (?) but not special Part II: Bulletproof Coffee

Photo credit: James Neish (it’s not Bulletproof)

I really didn’t think Bulletproof Coffee was going to take off like it did; and initially, I definitely didn’t want to write about it because I feel that sometimes, giving something negative publicity is still publicity and doesn’t necessarily strengthen my argument, but gives theirs more traction. However, when I saw Jill Coleman’s (@JillFit) status update, “I’m confused by Bulletproof coffee. The old fashioned version seems to do the trick just fine, no?” I realized that if Jill is confused, a lot of people are probably confused too. That, and I think anyone who reads my blog probably already knows about it, so really, I’m not giving them any MORE publicity than they already have. Read More...

MOAR PROTEIN??

I saw this abstract in my Facebook feed, and when I saw, “randomized controlled trial” in the title, I knew I had to read it because good randomized controlled trials in fitness and nutrition are hard to come by. Let’s say that I was pleasantly surprised and excited by this one; and truthfully, that doesn’t happen that often.

Before we talk about the study, I think it’s important to differentiate between “high-protein” diets and “low-something else” diets. “High protein” means that the first maconutrient of importance is protein and when figuring how much carb and fat to eat, the calories not taken up by protein are then taken up by the other two macronutrients. “Low something-else” means that the first macronutrient taken into consideration is the “something else” (these days it’s usually carbohydrate), and then the rest is available for fat and protein. This doesn’t mean that a low-carb diet is automatically a “high protein” one, or, more importantly, that a “high protein” diet is automatically a low-carb one. Read More...

Hey, ass-hat with the abstract link. Yeah. You.

[Edit: More than a few readers gave me feedback about my use of a derivative of the r-word, which has gone from a medical term still used in medical journals to a pejorative one when used in a derisive context. A small portion of my patients are developmentally delayed and understanding the power of language (being more than moderately opposed to, “That’s so gay,” referring to anything more offensive than a bus of drag-nuns–which really isn’t offensive at all since the Sisters are AWESOME (honestly, I’ve been to their parties); so I guess”gay”=”awesome”), I’ve replaced it with “Ass-hat”. I have Googled its etymology and can find no reason not to use it. Now, onto the post.]

The rate at which psuedo-information flies around has now reached epic proportions. And not in a good way. Read More...

To anyone that says, "A randomized controlled trial in nutrition is impossible!" I can now say, "You just don’t want it badly enough."

Should you go on the Mediterranean diet?

As you are already probably aware, the Mediterranean diet is one of the diets that started it all. Its rules are relatively simple: lots of olive oil, lots of fruits and nuts, lots of vegetables and cereals, and some fish and chicken, and not a lot of dairy, red meat, processed meats, and sweets and some wine (And while Greece is part of Mediterranean, Greek yoghurt does not seem to feature prominently in this diet–so think on that a bit…)

The Mediterranean diet has been studied a lot. One could argue that of all the diets that have gone though fad phases, including the Atkin’s diet, the Mediterranean diet has been studied the most. In particular, its effects on preventing cardiovascular events (stroke, heart attacks and death from either) has been of particular interest. There have been major cohort studies, but never a randomized controlled trial. Read More...

Just because it’s brown, doesn’t mean it’s chocolate

This blog entry comes courtesy of John Woodslave who posted the link on my Facebook page.

Martin Bland’s “How to Upset the Statistical Referee” should be mandatory reading for all researchers. It’s short, gets to the point and, if everyone paid ACTUAL attention to it, would kill this blog. Read More...

This study makes no claims. But I bet other people will.

In the fitness industry, everyone’s trying to get or stay ahead. And while there are lots of ways to do that, tapping into published research is one of the more common ways to “reveal” something new and come across as being more leading edge than the next guy/girl.

I would argue that most people who post links to PubMed haven’t read the actual study, but are just browsing abstracts. I’ve written about what abstracts are good for in the past. But it’s been a while since I’ve really taken the theme up.  Read More...

The lime in the coconut is purely optional.

Before I even start explaining what I’ve done here, I want to make it absolutely clear that this analysis is fairly casual, and that by no means have I followed a text-book rigourous protocol to do it because if I HAD done that, you wouldn’t be reading this for another year while it waited in the publication queue of some nutrition journal. However, I will say that even with that disclaimer, I’ve probably been a bit more rigourous than a lot of crap I’ve read, so…well, there really isn’t anything more to say, is there?

Back in the early 2000’s there was a small surge of medium-chain-triglyercide (MCT) research that petered out around 2003ish. While there were a fair number of human trials looking at MCT’s and lipid profiles, there were also a handful of trials that also examined the effect of MCTs on body composition, specifically fat loss. And while MCTs are used in some supplements and meal-replacement shakes, there hasn’t been a widespread adoption of MCTs like there was when olive oil got really big (also in the early 2000’s), and I have to say that it’s not entirely clear as to why. Part of the reason might have been the sparseness of human trials involving MCTs compared to those looking at olive oil. Since 2009, however, there appears to be another blip of human trials looking at MCTs, and specifically at coconut oil, or mixes that involve a fair amount of coconut oil. Read More...

Screwed if you do, screwed if you don’t: People don’t want to read what they don’t want to hear

This WOULD be a catastrophe. This week, I was asked to write a commentary for Fitocracy on what has now become known as the “Red Meat Will Kill You” Study. The fallout in the blogosphere has been pretty dramatic (and by dramatic, I mean drama-filled and theatrical). There have been a few well-written, thoughtful commentaries, but by far, the bulk of criticism has been the general “correlation, not causation” crowd. While I think this is, by and large, a HYUGE step forward in general research literacy, it also makes me wonder if it’s just another sign of polarized, blinded thinking.

There is a fundamental difficulty with measuring long-term outcomes that are distantly removed from single-point events, and continuous repeated exposures. The three mainstream ways to get at the question of, “Does X make you live longer/shorter?” are:  Read More...