Curry spice turmeric boosts memory by nearly 30%, eases depression, study finds • Hacker News Board

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

#371

Post by quacker » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 8:08 PM UTC

mkempe wrote: post #118

quacker wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Normal people flourish and are in their prime around 50 How do you mean? I don't think most people in their 50s would describe themselves as being "in their prime". For example, ELO ratings of Chess players tend to decline in their 30s[1]. For NBA players, their "prime" is typically the late 20s, with performance declining in their 30s. 1. https://www.chess.com/blog/LionChessLtd/age-vs-elo---your-ba...

Note that I wrote around 50, not after 50. Middle age is usually defined as the 40 to 60 range (or more recently held to be slightly later, 45-65). That is the period when people flourish. That is certainly not when people are "elderly." Interestingly the Ancient Greeks used to report the time when one flourished rather than their date of birth. Neither extreme athletic performance nor ELO rating are measures of norm…

Are you equating "flourishing" with "being in your prime"? Because I don't consider those to be the same.

Being in your prime is about peak potential. And sure, the age at which you have peak potential varies by activity. My early 20s is when I have the _opportunity_ to be the best sprinter I'll ever be. That's my prime. But say I first take up sprinting in my late 30s, and put in my best sprint time at the age of 40. I might be "flourishing" at that point, but in no way does it mean I'm in my prime at age 40. The 20 year old version of myself, with the similar conditions and preparation, is simply physically capable of sprinting faster.

Certainly, there are activities where your peak potential is greatest in middle age. I'm not disputing that (however, I'm highly skeptical that memory and physical ability are in their prime past age 40).

> I'm surprised one would bring up such abnormal elements; the lives of NBA players and elite chess players deviate very far from that of a normal human

I mean, where can I get performance statistics for "normal people"? If we're talking about maximizing potential, why not look at the ones putting in the most effort toward that goal?

Also, the linked ELO ratings were for 179,221 "registered FIDE players". They weren't just the top-100 or even top-1000 players. Yes, this is biased toward people who play chess - but where else can you get the data?

I'm curious what you think a "normal human" is? Do you think any of those 179,221 chess players are "abnormal"?

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

#372

Post by selimthegrim » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 8:38 PM UTC

dahidahi1 wrote: post #356

moh_maya wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think you've misunderstood evidence based medicine as end-all, be-all of scientific analysis & only restricted to modern science. It is quite natural & largely common sense. Agreed, it is the gold standard for today, but it may not be so in the future, something else will come & upend that too as it always happens with scientific development. Remember Radium painting, that was also part of evidence-based medicine.…

You do realize AYUSH ministry funds Unani Tibb, too? Just saying.

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

#373

Post by selimthegrim » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 8:41 PM UTC

dahidahi1 wrote: post #251

Elrac wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to chime in to the growing chorus of HNers trying to explain to you why you're wrong. There's no such thing as "any other science." There is science as developed and practiced by qualified researchers all over the world - including India - and it's all one and the same science, which is a set of protocols for rigorously checking the relevance of what you're seeing, and the huge body of useful human knowledg…

Agreed that there is no "any other science". But human (Western) prejudices have made Vedic sciences (as in science originating from India) the lesser science, which is what I am trying to clarify. The reasons for this prejudice are too many, but it has a religious angle, an angle that the Church has pushed for too long that people have forgotten any other angle. Also the angle of Islamic destruction, which has ensur…

So let me get this straight, if I have a Muslim last name I can't claim any attachment or heritage to Ayurveda even if my family uses it and we've been in the subcontinent for 500 years?

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

#374

Post by jjgreen » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 8:50 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #346

jjgreen wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it odd that the sibling reply by fleitz (all that science can say is "is it false"), which just a precis of Popperian philosophy of science, has been marked dead. Not a view that I share, but seems uncontroversial.

Agreed, indeed my immediate response to that comment was "that's not how science works, it's falsificationist". What is your view on science, do you think it can create - and verify - a true result? Whither axiomatic underpinning in such a view?

Well thanks for asking.

I think it's clear that science gets us truth, but that the mechanism for that complex social activity can't be reduced to a few axioms or principles; Feyerabend gives a detailed description [1] of how bad a scientist Galileo was (as judged by modern theories of what science is), yet he was right, and he advanced truth.

[1] Paul Feyerabend, Against Method (1975)

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

#375

Post by closed » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 9:21 PM UTC

vanderZwan wrote: post #350

closed wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the other commenter, and Gelman's blog is a good place to start. There are very clear, concrete statistical arguments, but they are difficult to summarize in the comments section of HN. The gist is like this. Imagine that someone had people play 20 different slot machines. Then they went into a private room and looked at the results for each machine. After, they come out with the results of 5 of the mach…

I can follow your analogy, but it doesn't quite add up. The researchers took a group of people and submitted each of them to an "extensive neuropsychologist test battery" . That's not just testing 20 different slot machines, that's testing 20 different designs of slot machines. (Also, each person does each test on their own, which is the equivalent of having them not only play twenty different models, but a unique pr…

You hit on a lot of important points. The key here is that they are making a claim about memory, a psychological construct, that is being represented by some of their measures (batteries). But their batteries also purport to measure other psychological constructs, too.

To connect this with the slot machine analogy, it might be like if groups of slot machines had different colors, and they chose the color that yielded the best results.

> but would coming back and saying "these five designs have a higher than chance level of winning!" be an incorrect conclusion?

It would be if you didn't take into account that you analyzed 20 machines in your analysis .

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

#376

Post by vanderZwan » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 9:26 PM UTC

lazerpants wrote: post #366

vanderZwan wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem you describe is a real one, but a bit different than the other criticism raised here so far. Chocolate has the Mars Company and other Big Sugar companies behind it pushing for justifying chocolate as a "health food" in the public mind. It is very obvious that they are wiling to distort the truth for better sales; people who can ease their conscious about eating unhealthy sweets buy more chocolate[0]. Ther…

Here's a study on salt you may enjoy: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29359681

I'm not a native speaker, what does the K stand for? Potassium? (as in "Kalium-salt")

Another argument in favour of eating potassium and less sodium, which is pretty well established:

https://nutritionfacts.org/video/lowering-our-sodium-to-pota...

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

#377

Post by dumbneurologist » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 9:29 PM UTC

martingoodson wrote: post #351

dumbneurologist wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to state this so strongly but I feel it's important to point out that this is misinformation of the most egregious kind. There is no examination of statistical power in this article whatsoever so there is no basis for your claim that this study is properly powered. The power is only relevant when you fail to detect an effect. This is a positive study, so the power is simply not relevant to criticizing that part…

The power is only relevant when you fail to detect an effect. This is absolutely false. Small, low-powered studies are more likely to produce false results than larger studies. This was well-documented by John Ioannidis over ten years ago, in work that should be required reading for all publishing scientists: http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jou...

This is addressed by pre-trial registration. You can't have publication bias (his argument) when you register the study and see that this is the only one.

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

#378

Post by chiefalchemist » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 9:35 PM UTC

anentropic wrote: post #329

chiefalchemist wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK. But without knowing why how can you be certain it's cause and not correlation? Especially in such a small trial?

isn't it because the control and treatment groups are randomised from the same pool?

It can still be correlation. It's possible you're just attributing something to an attribute you're tracking but that's just coincidence. Without a sense of why, you can't be certain about any conclusions.

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

#379

Post by dahidahi1 » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 10:30 PM UTC

selimthegrim wrote: post #373

dahidahi1 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed that there is no "any other science". But human (Western) prejudices have made Vedic sciences (as in science originating from India) the lesser science, which is what I am trying to clarify. The reasons for this prejudice are too many, but it has a religious angle, an angle that the Church has pushed for too long that people have forgotten any other angle. Also the angle of Islamic destruction, which has ensur…

So let me get this straight, if I have a Muslim last name I can't claim any attachment or heritage to Ayurveda even if my family uses it and we've been in the subcontinent for 500 years?

Not sure why / how you got that idea. I frankly do not get the point you're trying to make.

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

#380

Post by philipodonnell » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 10:48 PM UTC

vanderZwan wrote: post #330

closed wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a small sample size produces a big effect, it does not mean you can be more confident in the effect! All things equal, you'd expect confidence intervals / credible regions to be very large. Another way to say this, is that since the measurement error is large, you expect spurious findings that result from something like p-hacking to be large (they have to be to be significant).

What annoys me as a someone not trained in statistics is that these discussions are always abstract in-principle arguments about what proper statistics should be like. Meanwhile, we have a real paper with real p-values , why not discuss the validity of that? > SRT Consistent Long-Term Retrieval improved with curcumin (ES = 0.63, p = 0.002) but not with placebo (ES = 0.06, p = 0.8; between-group: ES = 0.68, p = 0.05).…

I know you want this to be true given your stated disatisfication with the current state of attention deficit medication, and I know that arguing about statistics seems pointless, but this is n=40 (21 test 19 control). No matter how good your p-values are or how many different tests you run, there's just nothing to take away from this right now.

That is not to say its worthless. If there are a number of repeated similar trials by different researchers and this study is combined with those in a larger meta-study that continue to show significant results, then it could end up being a very important study to look back on.

But right now its just 40 people eating refined turmeric and taking memory tests...