Poor Study Design Can Show Anything You Like: Acupuncture For Hot Flashes
In the most recent issue of The Journal of clinical Oncology is a study comparing acupuncture to Effexor in the treatment of vasomotor symptoms (hot flashes) in women with breast cancer who cannot take hormone replacement therapy. The study found that the two treatments are equivalent, with longer duration and fewer side effects from acupuncture. However, the study is designed as a pilot study (very preliminary) and therefore the conclusions are highly unreliable – given prior research, this raises the question as to why the study was performed at all. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*
