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I think what you're seeing though is a mainstream deterioration of trust in medical science.
Which in my opinion, is warranted. But we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Problem is, "this being completely outside my field" is the position of 99% of the population, so what is a non-expert to do?
We need trustworthy and incentive-aligned experts. Unfortunately, the US academic system has very messed up incentives.
I agree, but the same thing can be said about many of these health gurus. Their incentives are usually pretty opportunistic, too, especially when they sell some magic health supplement on their channel.
We need trustworthy and incentive-aligned experts.
As a non-expert, it's hard to assess whether one or the other expert is incentive-aligned, so, metastudies are probably the best next thing we can do...
I'd rather read the hedged and uncertain conclusions of a meta-study than hear absolute truths from a health guru
Fair enough.
I'd rather hear someone put the pieces together in a coherent easy to follow narrative that discusses the mechanisms than just present a summary of findings from problematic empirical studies.
Science is often boring and not easy to follow, without a clear and simple narrative. That's probably also why there are so many problematic empirical studies. Too many cofounding variables.
Tbh, deepdown, I agree... i prefer reading a quanta magazine article on a topic I am not familiar with than the original article. More catchy, with a clear narrative, and gives me the illusion of understanding some abstract math.
But for health-related topics, the quest to create catchy and superficial YT videos can have more dramatic consequences.
the quest to create catchy and superficial YT videos can have more dramatic consequences
Did you watch the video or have familiarity with the person who made it? Because, I don't find that to be a fair assessment.
I have read lots of primary sources in health and nutrition science. The Eric Berg videos I've seen generally present the material accurately, in the cases I'm able to judge.
why there are so many problematic empirical studies. Too many cofounding variables.
They are also often poor empiricists. Most of our examples of poorly identified studies (other than econ ones) that we discuss in econometrics courses come from health and medicine. Despite the importance of doing so, they receive basically no training in addressing endogeneity problems.
It is an attempt at dymystification, whereas in the mainstream, pharmaceutical-peddlers seem bent on the opposite. Gotta look critically on either side, but I feel much more aligned with the person who treats the body as an interconnected system. TCM is another world entirely.
TCM as in traditional Chinese medicine?
Yessir
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36102667/
This being completely outside of my field, I'd rather read the hedged and uncertain conclusions of a meta-study than hear absolute truths from a health guru on Youtube~~
As a general trend I've noticed is that a lot of the "mainstream science has it completely wrong" videos base their assessment on old science from my parent's generation that has been corrected since (e.g. sugar is good, all fat is bad... no up-to-date doctor will still confidently claim this). Similarly, high cholesterol is not considered necessarily bad anymore. It's just a marker amongst others, and context matters when this marker comes back high.