cashlessclay said...
A well functioning orchestra takes careful selection
of people, and detailed instructions. Put those same
instruments in the hands of the football team, and you
will not get the same result.
So, lets do a randomized, controlled, (clinical) trial
(RCT), where for half of the football teams, we replace
one or two (football) players with professional musicians
and see if we get music. Probably not. Clearly we have
shown that the addition of professional musicians to an
orchestra, does not improve music.
I'm sure we can conduct RCTs that show that the addition
of any one or two foods (or vitamins) to an average American
diet does not slow cancer.
Excellent analogy. There is also the "tiny parachute effect" to be considered. You know, have 1000 men jump out of an airplane with a 1 sq foot parachute. There is no statistically significant difference in death rate for those with the parachute vs those with none. Conclusion: parachutes do not prevent death when jumping out of airplanes.
But the amazing thing is: despite all kinds of flaws in the studies that usually work against showing any benefits to the interventions- there actually are some RCTs showing benefits to various non prescript
ion interventions, for either diet or supplements, for a variety of diseases including various cancers. Even sometimes including PC. I know there are because I have linked to more than one of them right here at this forum. In fact, I just recently once again linked to some- even a couple of RCTs- for vitamin K. Equally amazing is that these observational studies and even the RCTs generate little interest, not just among MDs but also among their patients. Even without having an entire orchestra working for you, still some of these non-prescript
ion interventions show some benefits from both tons of observational and occasional RCTs.
Post Edited (BillyBob@388) : 5/22/2019 10:07:52 AM (GMT-6)