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jeff47

(26,549 posts)
8. No, there's some problems with their conclusions
Tue May 15, 2012, 10:01 PM
May 2012

I'm aware of the study. But it's got some problems.

In the first experiment, the 1st group (24 h/day HFCS) gained the least weight. See table 1 (Within the MoE with the sucrose group). They spend an awful lot of time talking about groups 2 and 3, but they ignored group 1 in their prose.

So if HFCS is worse than sucrose, how come the group with constant HFCS exposure didn't gain the most weight? They'd drink the most HFCS. But the authors don't discuss group 1 in their results. But the real problem is in the discussion section, which we'll get to in a minute.

In the second experiment, they lack a sucrose control. Which is what I was complaining about.

The third experiment shows the opposite results from the first experiment: 24-h HFCS gained the most weight. There is no mention that this is the opposite result, much less a hypothesis as to why.

The real problem is in the first paragraph of the discussion section - the only part where they actually discuss their results instead of the implications of the results.

First, they claim the 24h HFCS rats in experiment 1 gained the most weight. This directly contradicts their results - they gained the least weight.

Second, they claim that in both experiments 2 and 3, HFCS rats gained more weight than sucrose rats. But there were no sucrose rats in experiment 2.

So...Why does their discussion directly contradict their own results? Why did the editor for this journal not notice these glaring errors? Is this a journal that publishes any paper instead of sending them out for peer review? How are we supposed to draw any conclusions from this paper, when they get one set of results and then ignore them so they can discuss as if they got a different result?

If I was supervising their research, I'd send 'em back into the lab to keep working on it.

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