Category Archives: Uncategorized

Sackler Colloquium on “Reproducibility of Research: Issues and Proposed Remedies”

I had the pleasure to attend and contribute to a Sackler Colloquium on “Reproducibility of Research: Issues and Proposed Remedies” organized by David B. Allison, Richard Shiffrin and Victoria Stodden. While I could spend time here summarizing it, others have done so already:

If you have the time, I encourage you to watch the videos themselves. We have been adding a few of them to the Obesity and Energetics Offerings each week so those interested can drink slowly from the aquifer of information provided at the colloquium.

New Chapter: “Critical Evaluation of Nutrition Research”

The importance of nutrition in medicine is increasingly being discussed. In response, a new book was compiled entitled Nutrition in Lifestyle Medicine edited by Dr. James Rippe. In it, my wife and colleague Dr. Michelle Bohan Brown and I wrote a chapter about “Critical Evaluation of Nutrition Research.”

The chapter walks through a number of challenges in evaluating and communicating research in general and nutrition in particular. We try to keep the topic lighthearted, with the hope that encouraging critical evaluation will not induce unabashed cynicism.

After presenting a talk for the ConAgra Food Science Institute Nutri-bites Webinars organized by Dr. Rippe entitled, “In the Eye of the Beholder: Critical Evaluation of Nutrition Research,” I was honored to be invited to contribute a chapter on a similar topic. This topic is one that Michelle and I have conducted research on, such as our paper about the reporting of the relationships between skipping breakfast and obesity. I was delighted we were able to work together again on this chapter.

Continue reading

Letter writing campaign pays off, for us and science

Reflecting on our experiences writing letters to editors and authors to try to improve the literature through post-publication peer review, we were invited to write a comment in Nature, which we titled “Reproducibility: A tragedy of errors”.

Over the course of at least 18 months, we wrote numerous letters to editors and authors, including direct contacts, contacts through submission systems, and PubMed Commons. The effort took much time and was often frustratingly slow, including sometimes ending without a resolution. Continue reading

Several new letters trying to correct the literature

Over the last some-odd months we have published letters and online comments to try to clarify and correct the literature where we saw plagiarism, potentially invalidating analyses, and overstatements of results. See some below:

Errors in statistical analysis and questionable randomization lead to unreliable conclusions.

Comment on “Intervention effects of a school-based health promotion programme on obesity related behavioural outcomes.”

Comment on “School-Based Obesity Prevention Intervention in Chilean Children: Effective in Controlling, but not Reducing Obesity.”

Concerning Sichieri R, Cunha DB: Obes Facts 2014;7:221-232. The Assertion that Controlling for Baseline (Pre-Randomization) Covariates in Randomized Controlled Trials Leads to Bias Is False.

Letter to the Editor: Exceptional Data in Paper on “The effect of meridian massage on BM, BMI, WC and HC in simple obesity patients: a randomized controlled trial.”

Awarded the Science Unbound Foundation Best Paper Award

Our paper, “Belief beyond the evidence: using the proposed effect of breakfast on obesity to show 2 practices that distort scientific evidence,” received the 2014 Best Paper Award from the Science Unbound Foundation for a paper by a University of Alabama at Birmingham investigator in the area of nutrition and obesity. The Science Unbound Foundation has as its mission:

“Furthering scientific knowledge in the service of health, happiness, and quality of life of humankind through scientific research and education.”

Thank you to the foundation for recognizing our work.

First place: Postdoc Research Day Oral Competition

The Postdotoral Association and the Office of Postdoctoral Education at the University of Alabama at Birmingham held PostDoc Research Day 2014 with oral presentation competitions. I was awarded first place for my presentation entitled, “Using crowdsourcing to evaluate published scientific literature: Methods and example.” Every presentation in the session was well delivered and quite interesting, which made being selected first place truly an honor next to the other fantastic presentations.