[recycled material - first appeared here]
A news release about a new study on Kava as a treatment for anxiety caught my attention. In it I found some bad and some stupid. Fortunately–and contrary to what usually happens–there was a link to the published article itself, and there I found a bunch of good. Usually I tend to encounter hidden bad when I dig deeper.
First, the bad. Then the good. Finally, the stupid.
The bad. The news release reported that “the placebo-controlled study found Kava to be an effective and safe treatment option for people with chronic anxiety and varying levels of depression.” Beyond that general statement, the report gave zero numbers. No precision with that element of scientific language. “It worked,” is not very helpful in evaluating a treatment.
Also, while the study was deemed “safe,” raising “no major health concerns,” the trial lasted a pathetically brief three weeks. Three weeks!
Upon clicking a link to an abstract from the Springer journal Psychopharmacology, I found the option to view the full text in .pdf. And so I did. And, surprise, surprise! I discovered that the researchers did some very good science.
The good. Besides being placebo-controlled, the trial was randomized and double-blinded. Okay, there were only 37 subjects that completed the trial. Still, it is good to know, and reasons for drop-outs were explicitly stated.
And the treatment was indeed significantly effective. For example, on the primary measure (Hamilton Anxiety Scale: total range of 0 to 56) anxiety scores fell an .8 points in the placebo group and 9.9 points in the Kava group. That indeed rates as “effective.”
Now for the stupid. Statements like this, made by the lead researcher, perpetuate ignorance and folklore:
“We’ve been able to show that Kava offers a natural alternative for the treatment of anxiety, and unlike some pharmaceutical options, has less risk of dependency and less potential of side effects,” Mr. Sarris said.
First, no, Mr. Sarris, you have not shown less risk of dependency and side effects with a single, three-week trial of 37 subjects.
Second, “a natural alternative”? Oh come on. Please. Be a little more scientific and don’t perpetuate stupid misunderstandings. Here is the difference between “natural” and “conventional” medicines: the connotations of words. Natural brings to mind forests and flitting fairies perhaps, conventional conjures up images of laboratories.
Any safe medicine consists of chemicals manufactured or extracted to a concentrated and standardized dose. In terms of this study, the “natural Kava” came in tablets containing 250 mg. kavalactones. Subjects didn’t drink it out of a coconut shell while listening to tribal drumming.
Seen another way, alternative treatment are simply para- and/or pre-conventional. They have yet to be fully tested and distilled to higher potency. And safer form as well, for many raw, alternative treatments contain undesirable chemicals along with the effective ones.
Science done well provides so much good. But yes, along with the good we can find doses of bad and stupid. Maybe some day there will be a way to better extract and concentrate the good, for the good of the general public.
Just last month I wrote a post, Luke-Warm Sports Streaks, explaining how I was warming up to the idea of the possibility of a “hot hand” phenomenon: that athletes will “get in the zone” and perform above and beyond their customary level. How far above and beyond? Beyond statistical probability — for even a tossed coin will appear to go on streaks.
This morning a new bit of research has again put the idea on ice.
New research by Dr. Yonatan Loewenstein and graduate student Tal Neiman at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem shatters the myth that a player who scores one or more three-pointers improves his odds of scoring another. [source]
Frankly, that an athlete on the top of his/her game would go on streaks doesn’t make sense. For they have trained and trained and performed many times on the biggest stages. They already know how to give the proverbial 110%. That is how they got to the big show in the first place. It seems to me this “in the zone” idea is akin to an amplifier volume knob with the customary scale of 1-10 being replaced with one that goes up to 11. The only real change is our perception.
A bit more about the current research:
Loewenstein and Neiman examined more than 200,000 attempted shots from 291 leading players in the National Basketball Association (NBA) in the 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 regular seasons, and more than 15,000 attempted shots by 41 leading players in the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) during the 2008 and 2009 regular seasons.
Wow! Talk about quantity of data.
But oh-oh. What about this confounding finding -
Surprisingly, the researchers discovered the exact opposite of what players and fans tend to believe: players who scored a three-pointer and then attempted another three-pointer were more likely to miss the follow-up shot. On the other hand, players who missed a previous three-pointer were more likely to score with their next attempt. [emphasis added]
Well that’s a surprise. Of course I can rationalize this element, but I really don’t know what’s going on. My rationalization would be that players who had just made a 3 point shot would subsequently experience a tightened defense. Or maybe their boost in confidence would make they try a more hasty subsequent 3 pointer. As for the player who had just missed — he or she had taken the equivalent to a live-action warm-up shot and would encounter no such tightening of the defense or hasty follow-up attempt.
Is that what’s going on? Frankly, I don’t know. But I am certainly fascinated in the many ways the human mind rushes to make meaning out of his/her experiences. Prematurely even.
It has been known for decades that meditation and other relaxation techniques can lower stress. Which is good for “body and mind.” (As if they were two separate things — some might say that mind is what a body does, with a crucial role played by the brain.) A new study has confirmed meditation’s efficacy in perhaps a novel subject pool and/or setting.
In, Transcendental Meditation effective antidote to record stress levels in school students, I learned,
A new study published in the Journal of Instructional Psychology found the Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique significantly decreased psychological distress in public school students. The study, conducted with at-risk minority secondary school students, showed a 36 percent reduction in overall psychological distress. Significant decreases were also found in trait anxiety and depressive symptoms. [emphasis added]
While I don’t doubt the study finding — I’m a fan of meditation myself — I do have a question, a compliment, and a criticism.
The question: How was psychological distress measured? This is an important bit of information.
The compliment: The foot of the news release contained a list of “Study Facts,” including such things as number of subjects, subject ethnicity, etc. I wish all press releases for science findings included such a handy list. But why wasn’t the means of measuring improvement included?
The criticism: The title to the news release, the name of the program (Transcendental Meditation Quiet Time), and the multiple mentions of TM (a coincidently trademarked term and supposed unique technique) imply that there is something special about this type of meditation as it pertains to stress relief. There isn’t. An analogous study would claim that Tylenol effectively decreases pain. That write-up would be all about the benefits of not acetaminophen, which is the generic term and active ingredient of Tylenol, but rather of Tylenol. I imagine the makers of Tylenol would love it. Free marketing!
Tylenol is to acetaminophen as Transcendental Meditation is to meditation (or focused/intentional relaxation?). Better science pares down variables to their most basic element(s).
Me, I practice, um, call it Extraordinary Ordinary Meditation. EOM.
I do yoga. Kinda. But not really. I have recurrent lower-back and neck pain, and to make the episodes less frequent and less severe I have found that daily sessions of yoga “mindful stretching” really helps. I don’t think I can honestly call it yoga because I don’t get into any traditional postures–that I know of. And I certainly harbor no belief that by doing it I am achieving some sort of spiritual transcendence or union with the godhead. No. I loosen my muscles, get the fluids in my joints circulating a little better. While I’m at it I try to “loosen” my thinking. Stress has a psychological component, so while relaxing my body I consciously attempt to do the same for my mind.
Recent research confirms my feeling that stretching is helpful for back pain. It also indirectly shows that the use of the word yoga may be little more than marketing. At least when talking physical benefits.
At the website, ScienceDaily, I found this press release: Yoga Eases Back Pain in Largest U.S. Yoga Study to Date
So yoga works? Am I missing out by merely stretching? Lead author to the study, Karen J. Sherman, concluded:
“We found yoga classes more effective than a self-care book — but no more effective than stretching classes.”
Well that’s interesting. And noteworthy.
My bet: Health instructors of the yoga variety across the land will use only the first half of that finding to promote their brand of “stretching-by-another-name.” Then again, when advertising their services they are doing “sales.” And using fancier terms is what sales people do.
As an outsider, a person unfamiliar with altars and churches and Christian iconography (in this case within my photograph of items in a Catholic church of the Sicilian sort) encountering the above might cause you to think, What the heck?! What’s with all the gold coloring and the scalloped shaped things and the wings on the little dudes?
Because an outsider’s reasoning lacks the acculturation of the insider’s, her or she is more likely to experience gaps in what makes sense. Sometimes this is for bad; but to those who value greater objectivity, it is often for good. Consider the “gaps” exposed by the cartoons below.
[cartoon thanks to JesusandMo.net]
[if you doubt the above exaggeration of a valid point, I recommend you read the Qur'an, front to back, as I recommend anyone read the Bible; cartoon thanks to Atheistcartoons.com]
[cartoon thanks to xkcd.com]
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