Anyone Fancy a Journal Club?

RE: Anyone Fancy a Journal Club?

Simon Heikkila — Tue, 28 Jul 2015 16:05:38 GMT

Bob, the conversion from a mouse dose to human dose is not linear. Typically it is based on a body surface area conversion. The FDA recommends (see this PDF) that you divide the mouse dose by 12.3 to arrive at a human equivalent dose, which would make it just shy of 2200mg for a 90kg man.

That's a lot closer to the 1000mg that they are recommending for humans.

Hope this helps!

RE: Anyone Fancy a Journal Club?

Arlo Guthrie — Wed, 22 Jul 2015 19:31:40 GMT

[quote user="Michael Woodhouse"]Arlo Guthrie could we have a journal club sub forum?[/quote]

Sorry for slow reply Michael, not ignoring you, just snowed under.

I think this sounds like a good idea. But give me a couple of weeks to get everything else sorted!

RE: Anyone Fancy a Journal Club?

Niall Taylor — Wed, 15 Jul 2015 12:00:28 GMT

[quote user="Michael Woodhouse"]Lets see if we can have a sensible discussion over the presented evidence in the paper.[/quote]

Well, no blinding mentioned as far as I can see, and a pretty obvious conflict of interest for a start:

This study was supported by a grant from STEMTech HealthSciences, Inc., to AntiCancer, Inc. This work was presented as a poster presentation at the Annual Meeting of the International Society of Stem Cell Research, Philadelphia, June 2008.

Christian Drapeau and Donna Antarr are affiliated with STEMTech HealthSciences, Inc., provider of StemEnhance.

Niall

RE: Anyone Fancy a Journal Club?

Michael Woodhouse — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 14:19:00 GMT

Arlo Guthrie could we have a journal club sub forum?

RE: Anyone Fancy a Journal Club?

John Flynn — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 13:10:20 GMT

Nice analysis Michael.

I guess attaching a non-open access paper as a PDF probably ain't allowed, so open access it is (though that does rather limit stuff, esp with regard to "historical" widely referenced papers...

Here's are 3 titles from Plos, none of which I have read, to choose from (or someone choose something else!):

Neutering Dogs: Effects on Joint Disorders and Cancers in Golden Retrievers (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0055937)

Energy Requirements of Adult Dogs: A Meta-Analysis (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0109681)

The Effect of Four Anaesthetic Protocols for Maintenance of Anaesthesia on Trans-Diaphragmatic Pressure in Dogs (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0075341)

RE: Anyone Fancy a Journal Club?

Michael Woodhouse — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 09:31:36 GMT

[quote user="Bob Russell"]Is the idea that we discuss good papers or some of the junk out there? [/quote]

I would suggest both. Quite happy ripping things to shreds if it deserves it. Quite happy using this to disseminate good information. Even in good papers there are things we can pick holes in.

Just don't pick the bunny one I did with Hannah.....

RE: Anyone Fancy a Journal Club?

Bob Russell — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 09:27:21 GMT

I am constantly being bombarded by requests for medical research publications. I don't do research and never have done. What I have worked out is that to get my papers published it is a requirement that I part with money!

Vanity press!

Is the idea that we discuss good papers or some of the junk out there?

RE: Anyone Fancy a Journal Club?

Michael Woodhouse — Mon, 13 Jul 2015 23:25:30 GMT

[quote user="John Flynn"]Can we mock appraise the evidence presented in a more relevant general vet practice article next please?[/quote]

Yes. You pick one for next week. Can we have a rule that it's either open access or something the majority of us are likelt to have access to (Vet Record, JASP?).

I think the bigger conflict of interest is the people funding the study are the ones selling the stuff........

If you use a 2 tailed student T-test to compare the means then we get P=0.3143 - so there is no difference between the two groups and it is likely to be due to chance. You can't pick a random statistical test just because it gives you a significant P value.

As the result isn't significant it seems meaningless applying it to other species, but we could be very generous and presume it won't work in people either.

If we take the difference of 4.2% as 'real' then we would need to 271 mice to show a statistical difference. I wouldn't wish it on the mice. We have a small bit of background noise interpreted as 'evidence'. Poor science. Really poor science.

It's something I've seen more of in recent times - supporters of alternative therapies quoting 'evidence' that doesn't really defend anything. I think the moral of the story is not to take this at face value.

RE: Anyone Fancy a Journal Club?

John Flynn — Mon, 13 Jul 2015 21:59:15 GMT

Can we mock appraise the evidence presented in a more relevant general vet practice article next please?

I skimmed it.

My conclusion was the study should not have been undertaken on ethical grounds due to the lack of plausiblity resting on ref29.

Conflict of interest: I am generally against animal experimentation.

On the "key" results presented, I didn't understand this:

"SE-treated group (21.7 ± 2.8 mm2) ... control (17.5 ± 3.0 mm2) (p < 0.05)"

Can anyone elucidate where these numbers come from? Especially what the +/- numbers in the brackets are?

While I hav a personal distaste for the littering of scientific publications with random printings of p<0.05, it turns to near-rage when they forget their Bonferonni correction!

I'm guessing this isn't a well-reviewed publication!!!

RE: Anyone Fancy a Journal Club?

Bob Russell — Mon, 13 Jul 2015 15:11:44 GMT

But the study in mice used 300mg/kg and the daily human dose of Stem Advance is only 1000mg. The mouse work is therefore completely irrelevant to the final product. At the dose rate in the study a 90Kg man would need 27000mg. A 500Kg horse would need 150 000mg!

The research might be sound but the product as it is sold is still completely untested. Have I got my maths wrong?

Sounds like yet another expensive placebo to me!