Scientists have rediscovered...
Coffee is healthier than birth control pills
Scientific news should be read with an eye, not counting on their immediate implementation in lifeMaria Molina, Slon.ru
These scientists are doing strange things.
Sometimes you just wonder: how did someone come up with the idea to study just such a thing? For example, a group from the Boston Medical Center led by Dr. Melody Hou on Friday, September 3, reported that for three months they sent SMS messages to 41 women saying that they should not forget to eat a contraceptive pill. The same number of women included in the study used other ways to remind them of the same. And, as a result, over three months of observation, it turned out that, on average, both forgot to eat their pill with approximately the same frequency. The results of the study, as expected, are published in scientific journals (in particular, in the September issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology), someone has submitted them for postgraduate work.
Among the scientific papers, there is undoubtedly a fair share of routine research, gaining cognitive mass for real discoveries. Counting the number of bacteria in a single glass, calculating the proportion of men among kindergarten teachers in the city of Uryupinsk, analyzing the sound picture of one word in the language of a mountain tribe of two people, and so on. But there is a limit to everything. If such a zero result came out of a scientific study that was clearly not going to pull more than a routine collection of facts, is it worth publishing it in journals and sending it around the world? Especially with the indication of the names of the performers. They will be ashamed to look into the eyes of colleagues at a profile conference.
Or are you not ashamed? Maybe this study about contraceptives will have a completely practical, paid application? Not therapeutic, but purely of an advertising nature. Do not use pills, but rather put a spiral, because even reminders on the phone do not help to observe regularity. At Boston Medical Center, for example.
In this case, of course, there was not even a special need to conduct research as such. And whether it was carried out at all, it is difficult to check. The probability that any other sociologist using the same initial data, that is, 82 women and an SMS messaging program, will get the same results is approximately 100%. Well, minus the calculation error. So it was possible not to make a fuss, but simply to write to familiar journalists: they say, here, they conducted a study for three months ... come, let's drink to the fact that the marketers of the medical center allocated for the promotion of a new service for the installation of spirals.
by the way:
here is just one of several useless studies by British scientists (TM) that floated today in the biomedical news feed and retold with a serious look on the website .
True, there does not seem to be any advertising of long needles here, but why check the ABC truth in such a perverse way remains a mystery – VM.
A long needle for fat peopleThe obesity epidemic, which is spreading rapidly around the world, is affecting medical care.
As it turned out, intramuscular administration of medications with syringes with standard needles cannot be 100% effective for patients with a thick layer of subcutaneous fat. As a result, American scientists believe that longer needles should be used for obese people.
Researchers from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston (USA) vaccinated 22 women and 2 men with a diagnosis of "obesity" against hepatitis B. Both 1 and 1.5 inch needles were used during the injection. As a result, scientists came to the conclusion: injection with a standard inch needle gives less effect.
For reference: after the introduction of the vaccine, antibodies are formed that protect the body during a repeated attack of the antigen, in this case the hepatitis B virus. The experiment proved that the number of antibodies produced depends on the length of the needle. During the study, all volunteers produced enough antibodies to protect against hepatitis "B", however, those of them who received injections with a short needle, the number of antibodies was 2 times lower.
A joke is a joke, but such motives are not uncommon in the scientific approach. Everyone wants to make money, not everyone succeeds in inventing something that will pull, if not for the Nobel Prize, then at least for a commercial patent. And in general, ideas to write a scientific article do not always come to mind. And if there is a demand for certain studies, they can be produced. One problem: sometimes the needs of the market are contradictory, and then it turns out that the same thing simultaneously causes terrible harm and incredible benefit. It is absolutely impossible for a simple person, far from medical issues, to figure out where the scientific truth is.
About coffee, for example, they often write a variety of things. There are so many people in the world who can't start the day without a cup of coffee. Therefore, everything related to the study of the properties of this drink is fashionable and paid for, and is reprinted in newspapers and the Internet with great pleasure. And almost every day we read something in the spirit of "Coffee helps to stay young until death" or "A cup of coffee a day saves from diabetes." Admittedly, I, who read news feeds every day on duty, cannot immediately recall when scientific studies confirming its harm were mentioned in publications regarding coffee. Rather, on the contrary, everyone denies his harm. "Doctors advise elderly to drink coffee" is the first Google news headline on this word.
Or the same stem cells, a fashionable trend now – it would seem that they only bring benefits. Any center that treats stem cells can rake in money with a shovel, just for the fact itself. Who will figure out what kind of cells this center has there and where they are taken from? From pigs, from embryos, from the bone marrow of an adult, or from somewhere else.
International Society for Stem Cells Research (ISSCR) two years ago it warned that there were many clinics in the world that attract customers with this magic word. Especially, by the way, there are many of them in China, Thailand, Russia and Central America. They offer to treat everyone from very serious diseases – blindness, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis. People believe, among other things, because there have been too many published reports of miracles related to stem cells lately. And these publications, meanwhile, rarely mean the launch of a truly proven method of treatment into work. They usually just mark the next step forward of medical scientists in some rather narrow study.
Two cases are retold by Reuters with reference to specialists. In the first case, a boy from Israel was treated with stem cells from spinal cord injury in one of the Russian clinics. The formation of numerous cancerous tumors began. The second story concerns a woman who came to Thailand to get rid of the autoimmune disease lupus erythematosus. After a course of stem cell treatment, her kidneys failed and she died of sepsis.
Now there is a new wave of publications. Doctors from German and Chinese centers demand refutation of statements that their work with stem cells leads to deplorable consequences. "We work only with the best specialists of the largest hospitals!" they say. What else will they say? They also need to earn money, and quite a lot. And that stem cell therapy can cause the development of malignant tumors, and it does not depend on the qualification of a specialist, they do not say, because it is unprofitable.
In general, reports on scientific discoveries should be read carefully, without rushing to immediately believe everything and exactly in the form in which it is written in a magazine or newspaper. Even if it looks written very seriously.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru08.09.2010