It's not that they only crank out positive studies, they'll pay for five and only publish the positive one. If that's all five, great, if it's just one, doesn't really matter. Because no one else hears about the four bad ones.

It's why checking funding is one of the first steps when looking at research

[–] Carnelian@lemmy.world 14 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Just gonna take this opportunity mention that creatine supplementation has been deemed next to worthless by multiple meta analyses despite the near unanimous recommendation to take it among fitness industry professionals (95% of whom either sell it themselves or have an affiliate deal)

[–] dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Could you link any of those? I’m inclined to believe you but I’d be interested in reading one of the papers.

[–] Carnelian@lemmy.world 11 points 6 days ago

Of course!

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10180745/

Those considering creatine supplementation for the goal of regional muscle hypertrophy should consider the practical significance of the small magnitude of effect

compared to a placebo, the magnitude of this effect was trivial to small

To be clear, there is a minuscule effect observed over the relatively short time scale of the studies. What people do is erroneously assume that your “gains” will compound the same way interest compounds with money, so someone hawking the supplement will point to one of the more positive studies (for every hundred studies, we’ll get 5 that erroneously say it’s extremely good, with 95% confidence!) and argue that even minuscule amounts of extra progress will result in much better results over a long period of time.

In reality muscle hypertrophy actually works the opposite way. The further along you are the slower you progress lol. Furthermore, there has literally never been a study on the muscle building effects of creatine supplementation over a long period of time. We have no evidence whatsoever to suggest you’ll be better off at the 1 year mark, 3 years, 5 years, and so on. (There have been observational studies performed up to the 5 year mark, but only looking for negative side effects. No word on the benefits at that point)

This is all also ignoring serious methodological issues regarding the studies themselves. We just don’t have a reliable way to measure regional muscle hypertrophy at such a small scale. There is work being done at the moment trying to repeat some of the more positive studies while controlling for sudden water retention (which causes most measurement methods to false positive) and so far every time they do that they fail to replicate the original findings.

But yeah, even awaiting the controlled reviews to play out, based on the current flawed and overly optimistic studies, experts are saying “trivial to small” to the point where it has questionable practical significance. Which is why I say next to worthless instead of totally worthless.

As a side note, believe it or not, the international powerlifting federation officially recommends against creatine supplementation and even protein powder. Mainly because there are significant systemic contamination issues across all supplements and they keep finding banned substances in the powders. The amounts are probably small enough not to affect your health but pose a problem for athletes during drug testing

[–] Infrapink@thebrainbin.org 3 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Also, scientists are human. If a company offers to fund their research, they feel gratitude and want to find results which benefit their funders. They probably won't fabricate results, but the interpretation will be biased.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world -2 points 5 days ago (2 children)

What the fuck are you even talking about?

Like, what is forming your opinions you think that's a large problem?

[–] TheSambassador@lemmy.world 6 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Scientists need to be aware of their own biases, including feelings of gratitude towards the people funding their research. These biases can absolutely influence how and which evidence is presented in the results.

Considering the context of this comment, I'm honestly confused about why you're confused.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world -3 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Scientists need to be aware of their own biases

They are...

It's drilled into everyone's head everyday since basic states, the entire purpose of "advanced states" is eliminating all unconscious bias...

And just because it's called "advanced stats" doesn't mean some scientists don't take it.

Considering the context of this comment, I’m honestly confused about why you’re confused.

Because you either didn't read my initial comment, or you did and just didn't understand what the words meant...

And instead of asking questions to understand, you're just a pigeon playing chess.

If I stop responding, it's because I gave up on you understanding and just blocked you. I feel like that's where this is quickly headed.

Edit:

For simplicity sake,

The problem with what you said is it's the same as saying:

Bus driver needs to turn bus on before they can be a good bus driver!

Yeah...

You're correct, but by saying that you think some bus drivers aren't turning the bus on and still somehow driving the bus, just means you don't understand anything about the process.

[–] Infrapink@thebrainbin.org 4 points 5 days ago

My epidemiology professor explained it to me.

In principle, iffy results would be countered by other scientists researching the same area, but you know, replication crisis.

[–] lookingforanALFpolycule@lemmy.world 0 points 5 days ago

Which is compounded by 95% of researchers being meat eaters which is an inherent bias.