Re:Scientists Who Found Gluten Sensitivity Evidence Failed t...
by appleflaxen on Saturday March 18, 2017 @12:32PM
(#13902031)
Your criticism of a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study is essentially "but it doesn't fit my own (unblinded, uncontrolled) anecdote".
You offer an edge case that was not tested by the study.
Your criticism is constructive/relevant, but there is always some area of our understanding that the experiment doesn't reach... basically saying "here is a different but similar hypothesis that was not tested by the trial".
Ok; fair enough. But in the eyes of most readers, this data set generated by an insanely tight scientific design suggests that the optimal allocation might lie in a different direction of research for the individuals suffering these symptoms.
Interestingly: you can perform your own blinded experiment. If I were in your position, I would want to know whether my wife and I were planning our lives around a superstition. The way to answer that: an n-of-1 blinded clinical trial. It's a fair amount of work, but not as much as gluten avoidance, and would answer the question of your own circumstances better than any generalized scientific result from the literature.
You offer an edge case that was not tested by the study.
Your criticism is constructive/relevant, but there is always some area of our understanding that the experiment doesn't reach... basically saying "here is a different but similar hypothesis that was not tested by the trial".
Ok; fair enough. But in the eyes of most readers, this data set generated by an insanely tight scientific design suggests that the optimal allocation might lie in a different direction of research for the individuals suffering these symptoms.
Interestingly: you can perform your own blinded experiment. If I were in your position, I would want to know whether my wife and I were planning our lives around a superstition. The way to answer that: an n-of-1 blinded clinical trial. It's a fair amount of work, but not as much as gluten avoidance, and would answer the question of your own circumstances better than any generalized scientific result from the literature.