

Study: How Yoga Alters Gene Expression - prostoalex
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/05/study-how-yoga-alters-genes/275488/?single_page=true

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klunger
This is an excellent example of two things:

1) How to not design a study. There is no control group!

2) How not to do scientific reporting. There was no critical thinking or fact
checking involved in the writing of this piece. If there had been, the author
would have noted that the lack of control group was a serious problem instead
of pronouncing that yoga alters gene expression. They would have also noted
that a similar study was recently published (and hyped) which noticed similar
results between the practicing meditation and group therapy. [1]

[1]
[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cncr.29063/full](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cncr.29063/full)

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phtrivier
Quoting the study :

"Our study design is composed of both prospective and > cross- sectional
features (Fig. S1). The prospective aspect of the study involved enrolling 26
healthy subjects who had no prior RR- eliciting experience (Novices, N1) which
served as their own controls. They then underwent 8 weeks of RR-eliciting
training (Short-term Practitioners, N2). The cross-sectional aspect of the
study involved enrolling another 26 healthy subjects who had significant prior
experience of regular RR-eliciting practice for 4– 20 years (Long-Term
Practitioners, M) to be compared with novices either before or after their
8-week RR training."

Then

"We collected blood samples and biological measures when study subjects
attended morning laboratory sessions, during which M and N2 listened to a
20-minute RR-eliciting CD and N1 listened to a 20-minute health education CD
(control)"

So if I understand correctly, it means the "novices" went through :

* a period of time during which their blood was tested before, shortly after and then later after doing basically nothing

* a period of time during which their blood was tested before, shortly after and then later after doing meditation/yoga/whatever

The same experiment being done with people with more experience.

I'm no researcher, so I'm curious what would be an acceptable control group
for this experiment ?

A group of novices that would gets their blood tested before/after doing
nothing at all (sleep ? another activity ?)

Is it the fact that the same person serves as its own control (by doing
different experiments over time) that invalidates it ?

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jtaylor100
Seriously what is this? Why is this here?

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ainiriand
What a shitty caption and article. It makes me sad.

