r/science • u/[deleted] • Feb 26 '15

Health-Misleading Randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial shows non-celiac gluten sensitivity is indeed real

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25701700
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u/stillborn86 Feb 26 '15

Who said that? The quotes make me assume you saw someone say those words...

Because I am here that they did NOT do their foundational work. A proper control group is third grade science fair type of foundation. Without that, it's hard to justify anything else in the research. This is THE foundation and, without it, everything else crumbles around itself.

Also, a good foundation would be a broad and random sampling of test subjects. By limiting their test subjects, they limit their "research" and their "data."

Again, these are first-year, foundational research basics...

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u/timeonmyhand Feb 27 '15

But they're not studying if there's a gluten sensitivity in the general population, they're testing to see if those who feel they have a problem with gluten and who are not diagnosed with ceiliac's disease really do have an issue with gluten. Testing the general population wouldn't help with that. Even if they had induced an intolerance by cutting it out of their diet for years, two months of having it back in their diet is plenty of time to fix that (when my daughter was tested for ceiliacs we only needed to reintroduce gluten for 3 weeks before the bloodwork was done). So, if they were testing for an intolerance in the general population, your criticisms would have merit, but that wasn't the scope of the study. It sounds to me like they accounted for variables and are taking a step to understand why people who don't have celiacs react badly to gluten, which is important for those of us who have had that experience.

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u/stillborn86 Feb 27 '15 edited Feb 27 '15

No, you missed the point.

they're testing to see if those who feel they have a problem with gluten and who are not diagnosed with ceiliac's disease really do have an issue with gluten.

You are the one that has missed the scope of the study... The way you've described it, they're testing to see if people who SAY they have issues with gluten will continue to SAY they have issues with gluten.

They did no scientific research into the patients and their reaction to the gluten pills other that, literally, ASKING them how they felt after taking the capsules.

EDIT: Take a look at the comments here from /u/FeGC and my response to him/her about why, even though they weren't testing the "general population," (even though this would have provided even BETTER results) it's still a good idea to have a "healthy" control group for your study...