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Conclusions are exaggerated given lack of a control intervention.

Posted by kjbinstl on 24 Jul 2018 at 22:01 GMT

"There was no placebo arm and randomization was not blinded for either the study team or the volunteer." That means we don't know whether these people would have improved just as much with table salt, or corn starch. The authors assert that "The use of placebo and blinding ... are not useful when the research seeks to assess the presence and magnitude of the effect of an intervention." That's just wrong, especially when the single most studied intervention for major depression is a (recognized) placebo pill, and we already know people tend to improve with a placebo. More important is that the paper discusses implications for clinical practice, when such claims from these data are entirely inappropriate. I am surprised that this paper was accepted for publication with its exaggerated conclusions.

No competing interests declared.
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