It is very easy to find anecdotes for the efficacy of an intervention, because there will always be people who improve Much harder to track down people for whom the intervention was ineffective!
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As an example, a number of studies have demonstrated that ~1% of people diagnosed as terminal survive to 5 years regardless of treatment or lack thereof. Anything that these people did would be anecdotally effective
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In the thread above, it's also worth noting the many comments saying that people got worse before they got better This is a common theme in interventions that are ineffective but popular
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It is a form of stacking the deck - if you count any improvement, at any stage, as evidence for the intervention, then it doesn't matter whether it works or not
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The reality is that most chronic disease go through cycles. Depression, for example, is usually periodic and tracked in "episodes" rather than continuous
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So counting all improvements as evidence for an intervention makes no sense unless you also count all issues as evidence against it!
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End of conversation
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Huh. Almost like programmers and linguists playing at nutrition science may not be the most reliable dietary experts?
#CargoCultScienceThanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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