I said in my return post that we would be looking a little deeper into research. What I didn't say is what kind of research and why. We will get to this a little later. But before we dive into that, we should talk a little bit about the research process, how I approach research, what we can take away from research, and where I think we go wrong with it. The idea here is NOT to present findings and walk away, clapping myself on the back and chanting "I'm right and everyone is wrong." Rather, the goal here is to get conversation started. It is to bridge the gap between public and research; something that I think has always needed to be done. I want to help sharpen those critical thinking tools we all have, but don't always get the chance to perfect. In these ways, we can try to stop the grift before the grifters get going. We can tackle news articles and understand that when you hear, "Research shows that protein powder causes depression in young men," that it might not actually be true but rather the author's misunderstanding of what the research is saying itself. Eventually, and I may be getting ahead of myself here but, I would like to even get a sort of journal club going virtually where we can discuss in real time and have an actual debate about the research and what we think is going on... Of course, this will only happen if the appetite for it is there. So share this with people who you think would be interested. You may even see a few YouTube videos eventually.... when I have the time.
Now, if I'm being completely honest, the research process is rather large and complex. Even after diving into research for the last decade, I would only be fooling you (and myself) if I said I knew the ins and outs of every research methodology and statistical analyses. It's close to impossible but that's what keeps me glued to this discipline. There is so much and always something new to learn, kind of like Jiu Jitsu. Using this analogy, I've been told that when you reach your black belt in jiu jitsu, it feels like you become a white belt again and you feel you are starting all over again. You can approach everything with new eyes. This is how I feel looking at research. Every new bit of information instigates a review of everything you knew previously to expand on it. It is an amazing endless cycle of learning and we must never forget that research and science is fluid. What we know today is the best knowledge we have based on the tools we have at that time. This is why, while we refer to systematic reviews and meta-analyses as the gold standard, we must constantly be updating them.
So, what kind of topics are we going to cover using scientific literature? Basically, anything and everything of interest. Maybe we will spend some times dispelling conspiracies and myths (there's quite a bit out there) and maybe we will spend some times on topics directly relatable to day to day life (I'm thinking things like best training methods, what supplements actually work), and maybe just stuff that is interesting. Basically, the topics will be broad. BUT you have to keep in mind something... Doing any sort of review of the scientific literature takes time, a lot of time. That means that posts/articles on research may not come at as quick a pace as a regular article, but I'll do my best to get them out in a timely fashion. We won't be conducting major scoping or full literature reviews here, but we will be diving into topics as best as we can. Here is what you can expect.
Once an interesting topic is identified, and remember anything is fair game, I'll look to see if there is a recent review out there. When I say recent, I am talking about anything in the last five or so years. Obviously, we will want to tackle systematic reviews/meta-analyses, however, scoping and lit reviews will also do just fine (remember, we aren't publishing scientific literature through this site, so even a scoping review will probably have more than what I dig up for these short articles). If I can't find a recent review, I'll conduct a mini review. That is, I will dive into what I can find through Google Scholar for anything in the last 5 years (within reason). I'll do some data extraction from those articles and write up something for here. Remember, this won't be peer reviewed. This is not Gospel. This is what I am taking away from the articles I find and it is VERY IMPORTANT that you apply critical thinking when reading what I present.
Now, if your sitting there thinking, "but I know nothing about research, stats, or the scientific process;" don't worry. Along the way, I will make an effort to to expand on methods used within the articles. We will talk different types of studies, different analytical processes, why one article may be of higher quality than another article, and more. I am really hoping that by doing so we, together, can tear down this weird wall that has been constructed between the scientific literature and the general public. No more depending on CTV to hopefully interpret the findings for you (and yes, we will also do some comparisons of news articles vs what the science actually says), no more relying on YouTube gurus for scientific interpretation which somehow leads to the sale of books on their sites (I'm looking at you, Bret Weinstein). The goal is giving you the tools to do this yourself, all while digging into some really interesting topics. Stay tuned for more and I'll hopefully have something up shortly.
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