Rabid BS from a Danish acupuncture and menopause "study" — carelessly reported

20 February 2019

This is what happens — in math and science-illiterate cultures

The New England Journal of Medicine's "Journal Watch" reported the following — without caveats:

Acupuncture may help treat some symptoms of menopause, suggests a study in BMJ Open.

Danish researchers enrolled 70 women aged 40 to 65 with moderate-to-severe hot flushes who had not recently received hormone therapy (HT) or other medical therapy for menopausal symptoms.

Women were randomized to receive either 5 weekly sessions of acupuncture by a trained general practitioner in western medical acupuncture or no treatment.

The acupuncture group had better patient-reported hot flash scores, the primary outcome, than the control group at 6 weeks. The acupuncture group also had significantly better scores in day-and-night sweats, skin and hair symptoms, menopausal-specific sleeping problems, and emotional symptoms.

The authors conclude:

"Acupuncture for menopausal symptoms is a realistic option for women who cannot or do not wish to use HT. Women seeking acupuncture treatment for menopausal symptoms should be informed of the current evidence, and its limitations, so they can integrate this with personal preferences and values in their decision making."

If we go to the original BMJ Open report

The study's authors ludicrously claim that:

Strengths and limitations of this study

This study has high methodological quality, allocation concealment, adequate power, a validated outcome measure, sufficient and transparent reporting leading to high external validity.

The study had high participants adherence supporting that the intervention was manageable and well tolerated.

Since the intervention was pragmatic, standardised and brief, the applicability of the findings is high and might have a good chance of being implemented, which could lead to new treatment options for menopausal women.

At present, no sufficient acupuncture placebo comparator exists, which is a major limitation in acupuncture studies, this study included.

© 2019 Kamma Sundgaard Lund, Volkert Siersma, John Brodersen, Frans Boch Waldorff, Efficacy of a standardised acupuncture approach for women with bothersome menopausal symptoms: a pragmatic randomised study in primary care (the ACOM study), BMJ Open 9 (1), doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2018-023637 (2019)

Are you kidding?

With only 70 participants, this "study" has no statistical power whatsoever.

In scientific persuasiveness, it ranks with medical anecdotes. Even among a population as non-diverse as Denmark's.

How does such statistically unpersuasive nonsense make it into medical journals . . .

. . . without being appropriately flagged by journal editors?

I am especially irritated with Journal Watch. It holds itself out as aid to busy American physicians. Virtually all of whom do not have time to think about the methodological or statistical quality of the "studies" that journals report.

Journal Watch should have pointed out that a "study" this small — on a medical subject this complicated — "ain't worth shit."

No matter how purportedly carefully it was done.

The moral? — In addition to exhibiting a predominantly ignoramus population . . .

. . . the United States appears to be evolving an equally moronic intellectual leadership cadre.

Happy times are indeed among us. And we can't even blame President Trump, or the Deep State, for this devolution in American (and European) gray matter.

May I (therefore) hypothetically suggest that it's something in our air and water?

Perhaps I can cobble together a definitive study of 70 people to "suggest" exactly that. I'll rush off to BMJ Open to get my bullshit published. Followed by a phone call to Journal Watch to have that silliness reliably spread to a large body of harried American medical professionals.

PeteFree.com

Rabid BS from a Danish acupuncture and menopause "study" — carelessly reported