Among several weaknesses in the story, the biggest was a failure to evaluate the quality of the evidence – a failure to help readers understand what this study might mean and what it might not mean. As we state below in our “Evidence” criterion:
“We aren’t told if the symptom improvement is clinically meaningful. After all, IBS is a chronic condition and this is a short-term study. And most importantly, the reporting is confusing: “Changes in quality of life …..were not significantly different…. but all were much improved at the 3-month followup in the meditation group.” And no explanation was given of how symptom changes were measured. Or what was meant by “all were much improved at the three-month followup.” That’s a big weakness in the story.”
Many people are interested in non-medical approaches to improving health. Mindfulness meditation and other complemenary and alternative therapies, along with exercise and nutritional recommendations are of high interest. Mindfulness meditation and similar therapies are unlikely to have adverse effects and have the potential to be very low cost therapies. But this story didn’t give them enough about a very early, small study.
A researcher is quoted as saying the method is “inexpensive.” We imagine that’s true – although no cost estimate was given. However, the people in the study took an eight-week course and a half-day retreat. The costs in this study – in patient time, therapist time, gas bills at $4 a gallon and room space – can’t be trivial. Some cost estimate should have been given.
The story gave only percentages of number of people who saw improvement. With such a tiny study, why not give the actual numbers?
So, rather than reporting:
Why not report that 9 people in the meditation group reported reduced IBS severity compared with 2 in the support group. And after 3 months, 13 in the meditation group compared with 4 in the support group.
The story was also vague on the degree of symptom improvement, reporting: “Changes in quality-of-life impairment, anxiety, and psychological distress were not significantly different after the eight-week period. But all were much improved at the three-month follow-up in the meditation group.” What does “much improved” mean? This is the core of the issue and it wasn’t explained adequately enough.
Not applicable. We can’t imagine what the harm of this meditative approach would be.
We applaud the continued attempt by WebMD to include the boilerplate language at the end:
But we suggest some improved language:
The story states that 75 women were studied. But the abstract explains that only 66 completed the study – with a 12% dropout rate. Why did people drop out? And of 66 in the study, only 34 were in the mindfuless training group.
But our biggest problem is this: we aren’t told if the symptom improvement is clinically meaningful. After all, IBS is a chronic condition and this is a short-term study. And most importantly, the reporting is confusing: “Changes in quality of life …..were not significantly different…. but all were much improved at the 3-month followup in the meditation group.” And no explanation was given of how symptom changes were measured. Or what was meant by “all were much improved at the three-month followup.” That’s a big weakness in the story.
Not applicable because the story never even provided a basic description of IBS. Some readers may not even know what IBS is. So you can’t commit disease-mongering when you’ve offered so little background on the condition. But you also can’t educate readers very well this way either.
No independent expert was quoted.
NO comparison was made with any other approach to relieving IBS symptoms.
The story quotes one of the researchers saying “that mindfulness meditation is a practical, widely applicable and inexpensive method” and that “this method can be learned in educational classes without the need for clinical therapists.”
Widely applicable does not mean widely available. And “can be learned” doesn’t mean “has been learned.”
True to the spirit of what we’re looking for in this criterion, the story never gives an idea of how widely available this method or this training is.
The story didn’t even quote what the authors wrote in their abstract, where they called their work: “This first randomized controlled trial of mindfulness training as an intervention for IBS.”
The story doesn’t provide any background on whether this approach had been tested before for IBS.
The story admits that it relied on a news release from the Digestive Disease Week conference.
Systematic, Criteria-Driven
Puleeeeease... this 'game changer' weight loss drug causes more nausea and vomiting than a placebo. Some game, some change. My friend Gary would spank you for using the eighth word medical reporters should never, ever use. @garyschwitzer @thackerpd
https://www.healthnewsreview.org/toolkit/just-journalists-writing-tips-case-studies/7-words-and-more-you-shouldnt-use-in-medical-news/ https://twitter.com/OttawaCitizen/status/1361426796126830597
A scary @statnews Op-Ed warns that govt attempts to rein in Pharma may cut off access to "life-changing" drugs.
It takes @garyschwitzer to let us know: the author spent 10 years as Pfizer's public-policy chief. https://twitter.com/garyschwitzer/status/1360325022578053123
.@TranspariMED criticizes STAT op-ed for not disclosing pharma funding of author’s institute - similar to criticism we’ve made of STAT op-eds in the past. @transparify @ThinkTankWatch @icer_review https://www.healthnewsreview.org/2021/02/transparency-watchdog-criticizes-stats-non-disclosure-on-pro-pharma-op-ed/
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