I just published Blueberries Can’t Treat Heart Disease #health #sciencehttps://link.medium.com/9VT3iydafX
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Replying to @GidMK
I have to disagree with your "shady science" label. They preregistered; one could argue that they didn't give enough details, or may not have reported all secondary outcomes. But they specified insulin res as primary outcome clearly in the abstract, methods, and results. (1/n)
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They did find a difference from the 1 cup blueberry group on FMD, arterial stiffness, and cGMP. These were not subgroup analyses unless I'm reading incorrectly. (2/n)
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I do take issue with how the discussion is communicated, it does seem to upplay the secondary outcomes instead of indicating that they require new studies designed around them for power and multiplicity, so we should remain skeptical for now. (3/n)
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he PI seems to have fueled the spin in the reporting on this, which I think is the main issue. For now, I agree with you that we should not promote blueberries (over other foods) for CV health, and that is what they should be telling reporters. (4/n)
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Also, an important point: testing as a powder is necessary to be able to have a placebo group, of course, and these were freeze-dried whole blueberries, not a supplemental extract. Maybe I'm being generous, but this was not a terrible study in my eyes (5/5)
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and to be clear to readers of my last comment I note that you didn't say it was terrible: "But, in all honestly, I think this was a pretty good study"
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Replying to @nutsci
Yeh I don't think it was a bad methodology. I only used the subtitle shady science because I can't believe that they found no difference in they're primary or most secondary outcomes but somehow the trial was reported as a massive win for blueberries
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The FMD and arterial stiffness tests were only performed on a smaller group of the total patients (n~85) and the improvements in HDL were in a subgroup analysis excluding statin users. I think it's a bit problematic to report these as if they were the primary study outcomes
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Particularly as they were mostly marginally significant (p=0.04) and only evident for the higher dose of blueberries. The lower dose actually decreased performance on some tests!
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I reckon it's fair to say that if blueberries don't improve HbA1c, lipids, FBG, HOMA-IR, BP, or other insulin markers, that they are probably not going to improve heart health
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But they do improve all those health markers! And are associated with lower incidence of type-2 diabetes.pic.twitter.com/SBi1mAwgQ7
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