There were only 13 people in the active arm of the trial. Is this really newsworthy? If so, shouldn’t it be wrapped into the context of past claims for supplements for osteoarthritis?
Yet this story didn’t give any sense of the scope of the benefits found in the study. Did everyone taking creatine supplements improve in comparison with controls? If so, how much did they improve?
Not enough here to guide news consumers in their own decision making.
Knee osteoarthritis is an important problem. Many supplements have been promoted for it. Few have solid evidence to back them up. We wish there had been a closer evaluation of the limited evidence from this trial.
The story doesn’t give any estimate of the cost of creatine supplements.
The story didn’t give any sense of the scope of the benefits found in the study. Did everyone taking creatine supplements improve in comparison with controls? If so, how much did they improve?
The story discusses improvement in stiffness and “significant” gains in lower limb lean mass and quality of life in the creatine group in very general terms. But it states that “No differences in muscle strength or pain reduction were seen between the two groups.” Which did women value more?
There was no discussion of potential harms.
A story about a study that had only 13 people in the active arm of the trial should at least mention the limitations of drawing conclusions from such a small sample. It didn’t comment on the possible limitations of self-reported physical function, stiffness and pain.
In addition, the blog post didn’t mention any of the limitations that the researchers themselves acknowledged:
There was no overt disease-mongering in the story.
There are no independent sources quoted to evaluate the findings.
The story didn’t offer any comparison or any context about other claims for other supplements for knee osteoarthritis, or about other research in this field.
The story begins by referring to the popularity of creatine supplements.
The story didn’t explain if there has been any other past research on creatine for knee osteoarthritis. Is this a first? How does it fit into the context of other research in this field?
The authors wrote: “it is important to note that our findings are in apparent dissonance with those by Roy et al., who did not observe improvements in functional recovery after 40 days of creatine supplementation in osteoarthritis patients submitted to total knee arthroplasty.”
Not applicable because we can’t be sure of the extent to which the blog post may have relied on a news release. No source, other than the journal, is listed. No one is quoted.
Systematic, Criteria-Driven
The tale of two “negative” studies. Or, how spin is applied to make research findings look more impressive. A must read. https://johnmandrola.substack.com/p/the-tale-of-two-negative-studies
The @nytimes chose to interview one of the editors of the @AnnalsofIM (publisher of this paper) who "gushed with extraordinary glee: It’s huge! There are very few things that reduce your mortality by 30%."
Turns out coffee is not one of those few things despite all that glee. https://twitter.com/garyschwitzer/status/1533202075928215558
Comments
Please note, comments are no longer published through this website. All previously made comments are still archived and available for viewing through select posts.
Our Comments Policy
But before leaving a comment, please review these notes about our policy.
You are responsible for any comments you leave on this site.
This site is primarily a forum for discussion about the quality (or lack thereof) in journalism or other media messages (advertising, marketing, public relations, medical journals, etc.) It is not intended to be a forum for definitive discussions about medicine or science.
We will delete comments that include personal attacks, unfounded allegations, unverified claims, product pitches, profanity or any from anyone who does not list a full name and a functioning email address. We will also end any thread of repetitive comments. We don”t give medical advice so we won”t respond to questions asking for it.
We don”t have sufficient staffing to contact each commenter who left such a message. If you have a question about why your comment was edited or removed, you can email us at feedback@healthnewsreview.org.
There has been a recent burst of attention to troubles with many comments left on science and science news/communication websites. Read “Online science comments: trolls, trash and treasure.”
The authors of the Retraction Watch comments policy urge commenters:
We”re also concerned about anonymous comments. We ask that all commenters leave their full name and provide an actual email address in case we feel we need to contact them. We may delete any comment left by someone who does not leave their name and a legitimate email address.
And, as noted, product pitches of any sort – pushing treatments, tests, products, procedures, physicians, medical centers, books, websites – are likely to be deleted. We don”t accept advertising on this site and are not going to give it away free.
The ability to leave comments expires after a certain period of time. So you may find that you’re unable to leave a comment on an article that is more than a few months old.
You might also like