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Curry spice turmeric boosts memory by nearly 30%, eases depression, study finds

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Re: Curry spice turmeric boosts memory by nearly 30%, eases depression, study finds

#281

Post by dahidahi1 »

moh_maya wrote: post #253
dahidahi1 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is clear that you have not even read the Vedas to understand its implications on the world, especially in science. Most of the statistics that you ask have been lost due to them being so old, or deliberately destroyed. But we have the results to prove that these existed. "Strong observations & correlations" are just another way of saying "trial & errors". Not just ayurveda, but take any science or even Mathematics…

Look, you obviously have an axe to grind. And you are conflating too many different things. So I'll limit myself to the original point. Science, particularly modern science, even with all its baggage and flaws and politics, is evidence based. Evidence in this case is statistics and data. Those are not present, from many reasons (as an aside, I don't think there is any evidence of statistical trials being performed in…

No axe to grind. What could I possibly have?

> Science, particularly modern science, even with all its baggage and flaws and politics, is evidence based.

Can be reworded as: "Science, particularly Vedic science, even with all its baggage and flaws and politics, is evidence based." The vedas are not any different than any sciences that mankind honestly developed. Only, it goes far beyond what we (aka modern science) are/is able to comprehend, about the consciousness of the universe etc. With time, that will also be rediscovered. Also not to take away anything from modern science, many things have been discovered & invented far more than Vedic sciences. My problem is treating the Vedas as purely a religious book like the Bible & Quran and neglecting the great expanse of knowledge in it.

Re: Curry spice turmeric boosts memory by nearly 30%, eases depression, study finds

#282

Post by lstyls »

piracy1 wrote: post #233
hannob wrote: post #152

Small study, probably not preregistered (didn't find anything about it in the description). Likely Publication Bias or p-hacking. I'm starting to get interested when it's been independently replicated.

It's possible, but I think (not that I'm an expert) that this is not the first piece of evidence to suggest this. A year or two was recently speaking with a researcher who studies Alzheimer's and he had told me about how in cultures where more curry and turmeric was consumed there was significantly less Alzherimer's. I'll try to find a source for this and update my comment.

Not only is that anecdotal, but even if it's true it is correlative in the weakest sense. There are undoubtedly countless other features for which "cultures" (how does one define this concretely btw) with low Alzheimer's rates also are outliers.

Here is a great demonstration of how correlation does not imply causation: http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations.

Re: Curry spice turmeric boosts memory by nearly 30%, eases depression, study finds

#283

Post by fleitz »

jeffdavis wrote: post #206
randomsearch wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with “is this true?” Investigations is that there are tons of potential pitfalls and a combination of experimental limitations, poor academic incentives, and insufficient statistical and scientific training make this very hard to do well. I think it’s bad science, that will one day retrospectively be viewed as invalid scientific method. I think the way to combat this is to avoid studies that solely attemp…

I somewhat agree, but "is it true?" is all that science can answer. A mechanism is really just a narrower example without irrelevant distractions or confounding variables. Kind of like the difference between the bug reports: "run this complex workload on this specific machine and it will orobably crash after a few hours" versus "run these three commands when the cache is cold and it crashes".

Actually all science can really answer is 'is it false?'.

Re: Curry spice turmeric boosts memory by nearly 30%, eases depression, study finds

#284

Post by croon »

azemetre wrote: post #229
ShabbosGoy wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren’t we? People are living longer than ever before. The issue is in determining effect size. I’m sure some amount of all those things you mentioned is “good” in some sense, but in what quantity and for how long?

People are "living longer" because child mortality has fallen dramatically.

If in making those statistics one didn't account for that I'd be very disappointed, but it doesn't look like that's the case. [1][2]

[1] http://life-span.healthgrove.com/l/51/50

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK62587/

Re: Curry spice turmeric boosts memory by nearly 30%, eases depression, study finds

#286

Post by moh_maya »

dahidahi1 wrote: post #281
moh_maya wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, you obviously have an axe to grind. And you are conflating too many different things. So I'll limit myself to the original point. Science, particularly modern science, even with all its baggage and flaws and politics, is evidence based. Evidence in this case is statistics and data. Those are not present, from many reasons (as an aside, I don't think there is any evidence of statistical trials being performed in…

No axe to grind. What could I possibly have? > Science, particularly modern science, even with all its baggage and flaws and politics, is evidence based. Can be reworded as: "Science, particularly Vedic science, even with all its baggage and flaws and politics, is evidence based." The vedas are not any different than any sciences that mankind honestly developed. Only, it goes far beyond what we (aka modern science) a…

Now you are shifting the goalposts. This is what I am alluding to when I say, conflating multiple things.

Who, in this comment chain, is making any point about Vedas being purely religious? That is not apposite to this discussion.

The Vedas are a work of knowledge. In philosophy, in natural sciences. There is a strong argument to be made that they capture large parts of the essence of scientific temperament, which is analysis, refection & observation. But, modern scientific research is not just scientific temperament.

Practicing science, modern science, also requires evidence & follows a hypothesis-driven model that makes testable & provable / disprovable predictions.

You seem to be eager to misinterpret OR re-interpret terms to suit your perspective / point of view. "Evidence" based has a specific meaning. This [1] is a reasonable definition of what evidence based medicine means TODAY.

The vedas provide observations. They record correlations (perhaps). That's not evidence!

Lots of work has been lost; that's not unique to the Indian subcontinent. The library of Alexandria was lost. Many of Plato's works are lost. What does that have to do with modern science apart from regret & grief at what was lost?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence-based_medicine

Re: Curry spice turmeric boosts memory by nearly 30%, eases depression, study finds

#287

Post by afromatic »

roystonvassey wrote: post #247
hannob wrote: post #152

Small study, probably not preregistered (didn't find anything about it in the description). Likely Publication Bias or p-hacking. I'm starting to get interested when it's been independently replicated.

This is becoming an increasingly worrying trend - to bunk any analysis with a comment on 'small sample size, biases' that somehow moves to the top of the comment pile. Statistically, there is no such thing as a 'small sample size', in isolation. It is always related to the power and effect that the researchers want to work with. Moreover, even if a study is statistically insignificant, it DOES NOT mean that the oppos…

Moreover, even if a property is evolutionarily insignificant, it DOES NOT mean that it will be selected against.

Re: Curry spice turmeric boosts memory by nearly 30%, eases depression, study finds

#288

Post by pytonslange »

hannob wrote: post #152

Small study, probably not preregistered (didn't find anything about it in the description). Likely Publication Bias or p-hacking. I'm starting to get interested when it's been independently replicated.

It was registered as a clinical trial (https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01383161?term=NCT0138...). If you are concerned about p-hacking and replicability, what should worry you is that the outcome measures posted during registration are rather vague, i.e. ".. show less evidence of cognitive decline (as measured with neuropsychological assessments)"

At baseline, they performed an extensive neuropsychologist test battery, including a bunch of subtests:

  -Trail Making Test A
  -WAIS-III Digit Symbol Substitution
  -WAIS-III Block Design Test
  -Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test (copy)
  -Trail Making Test B
  -Stroop Interference
  -F.A.S.
  -Buschke-Fuld Selective Reminding Test [SRT]
  -Wechsler Memory Scale-3rd Edition [WMS-III] 
  -Verbal Paired Associations I
  -Benton Visual Retention Test
  -Buschke-Fuld SRT
  -Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test [recall]
  -WMS-III Verbal Paired Associations II
  -Boston Naming Test
  -Animal Naming Test
The outcome measures they report are:

  -TMT-A
  -SRT
  -BVMT-R
I would be _very_ surprised if those were the only tests they performed at followup after a 18 month (expensive) clinical trial. If these measures had been specified as the only outcome measures of interest, noone would question the results. But, when it was not registered, and when no other measures are reported, not even in the supplementary, the reader is left to wonder why that is.

Re: Curry spice turmeric boosts memory by nearly 30%, eases depression, study finds

#289

Post by wastedhours »

eni wrote: post #272
sov wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Small study Almost entirely irrelevant, provided it's properly powered--and based on the effect size and p-values, it is. Furthermore, for an 18 month trial, 40 people is larger than most. > probably not preregistered I mean, true, and we should definitely promote pre-reg, but, 1. so few are preregistered that I'm not sure it's prudent to disregard a study based on this and 2. it's an academic study, neither a clin…

it's not turmeric, it's curcumin, which is about 2% of turmeric by mass (so, you'd need to eat ~4.5g turmeric daily to match study doses) Typical Indian cooking uses turmeric in pretty much everything. I wouldn't be surprised if daily consumption of turmeric is very close to the figures you mentioned.

Interestingly, one of the recent fads I've been seeing has been for "turmeric lattes" - maybe can reach that level even if you're not keen on Indian cuisine?

Re: Curry spice turmeric boosts memory by nearly 30%, eases depression, study finds

#290

Post by danmaz74 »

maxxxxx wrote: post #234
smt88 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost guaranteed that some of your experience is the placebo effect, but it's impossible to know how much.

As I wrote before I have tried a few times back and forth with consistent results. Maybe it's placebo but it works reliably for me. As long as it works I am happy.

The thing about placebo is that you can't measure it on yourself - you can only find out with large enough double blind tests. But as long as it works for you - placebo or not - good for you!
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