There are lots of poor quality papers coming out of certain areas of the world where the mantra is publish publish publish. The fact most of it is very low quality is being recognised. (see link at bottom- Nature is a well respected source).
Lots of posts under diogenes profile of the science going on behind the scenes 😊👍
Some places you are regarded on the volume of work not the quality. These papers can be picked apart and the fatal flaws exposed because currently the whole research area is underpinned by some fairly bold assumptions and extrapolations.It does hold back progress and I’m sure behind the scenes there will be some jockeying by medical journals to be regarded as the best, then the others, the ‘also rans’ churning journals where peers simply rubber stamp each other’s work to progress their careers.The biggest problem is the easiest way to get published is to do work that reinforces the dominant thought in any subject and it reinforces the current paradigm. I call these people academic sheep.So as those at the top of the tree (actually doing the serious research) realise the current paradigm may need more than a fair old tweak and change direction, the sheep are running down the track in the opposite direction.As I start to get up to speed in the area, the glaring inadequacies of the research are not lost on me. In fact on more than one occasion I’ve been left speechless - my hubby would attest a rare event.There is some superb research out there but we cannot wait for that to trickle down so we have to self-advocate - this is not a ideal situation (UNDERSTATEMENT) but that why we coalesce into massive forums to push from the bottom up.
Not just the quality and quantity of papers. Also the number that are regurgitation, often almost entirely uncritical §, of other papers under the guise of metastudies or reviews.
§ In the sense of absent any application of critical faculties - not antagonist diatribes!
this was what started to take me down the rabbit hole helvella- i’ve seen some bad research in my time, but the paper I read a couple months ago absolutely took the biscuit.😱
Have a friend who is in a similar situation. I think it’s always worth starting off with a bit of a Google search and I did come across something the other day that discussed adrenal glands as well but hypothyroidism can feed into high blood pressure. Most definitely.
Being completely unscrupulous here, if you find a paper to back up your argument (good, bad or otherwise), it’s highly unlikely that any of the clinicians that you speak to will be proficient enough to pick it apart and find something that will counter it, even if they had the time.
That’s not entirely ethical, but gloves are off at the moment😂
Obviously, that said, it is much better to go for good quality though.
You can always search specifically for papers such as EuropePMC (or the USA's PubMed - same data). EuropePMC has a nicer way of viewing many papers on page without having to jump to another site.
Within that, you can choose a time-frame, options like reviews only, show abstracts, sort by relevance, etc.
The biggest problem is the sheer number of papers you will find. Many of which only refer to the two concepts in passing - not as significant content of the paper.
I was wondering whether there is a publication which our GPs would consider authoritative. I googled the bma (?) Stuff on Hypo but lost my way .Your stuff is great .
Is there an absence of dosages in thyroid research? My impression is YES. To me that is in itself so scandalous as to amount to downright disrespect to patients and off course (again) utter laziness in the so-called profession.
Helvella has a blog- there is an article on there and generally on the forum there have been discussions of differences between brands and the effect of the excipients.
I’ll link you to his blog when I get home- i’m at Aldi at the moment, living the highlife!
Poor research really does undermine all the great work that does go on.
I used to easily read and digest research papers, but these days with my hypo brain, I'm lucky if I can make it through a newspaper article! Struggling to do the depth and breadth of reading to bring all the pieces of thyroid puzzle together at the mo. Hopefully when a bit more with it, I'll be able to do that.
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