Study is here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-019-0633-0/tables/1 …
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Basically, the researchers gave fish oil or a placebo to kids with ADHD for 12 weeks, and tested them on a range of cognitive processing tasks before and after
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Here's their statistical analysis. If this reads like "we threw t-tests at a range of variables until results came out", to you, I'd say your not alonepic.twitter.com/PDRCEWDJgr
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The main findings of the research? I'll just let the results table speak for itself. I think it does a brilliant job all by itselfpic.twitter.com/MBV7lvl8ux
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JUST LOOK AT THIS A dozen statistical tests. Two 'significant' p-values (with one going in the OPPOSITE DIRECTION i.e. fish oil is bad) Pretty much what we'd expect if there was no difference whatsoeverpic.twitter.com/sw7pYUSGQg
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All of the headlines were based on this - a subgroup analysis comparing only children with low baseline levels of EPApic.twitter.com/wzOlum1HXv
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In other words, in the tiny subgroup (~30 children) who started off with low levels of fatty acids in their blood, there was a tiny indication that fish oil might be of some modest benefit NOT VERY IMPRESSIVE IS IT
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Also, these headlines saying that "fish oil might be as useful as drugs" are total trash THE STUDY DIDN'T LOOK AT DRUGS AT ALL
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The talk of drugs appears to be based on a quote from one of the authors of the study, which is astonishing given that the study didn't look at fish oil in comparison to drugspic.twitter.com/TPgN4TRqey
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Also, the study doesn't report excluding kids who were on drugs at the start of the trial, so it's likely that some of the differences could be due to drugs anyway...
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Also, did I mention the trial used a per-protocol analysis? I should definitely mention thatpic.twitter.com/KGXqPjF8Df
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So, in other words, with a design known to bias results, dozens of uncontrolled statistical tests, and still THE MAIN FINDINGS WERE NEGATIVE
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TL:DR - main findings were negative - no benefit to fish oil - nothing to do with ADHD drugs
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