October 21, 2023 — “Swift and decisive” was the decision by the Editor-in-Chief of Nutrition and Health. This is how Luis-Enrique Becerra-Garcia described the response to errors in a publication on educating women with obesity about ultra-processed foods. The authors had claimed to find significant effects on weight, quality of life, pain, and metabolic syndrome. Becerra-Garcia and colleagues found […]
December 21, 2022 — Clinical research is hard to do right – especially if the goal is to discover the true answer to a scientific question. Because scientists are human, they bring passion to their work. But they have to set aside those passions in designing and conducting research so that their research will hold up to scrutiny. Along […]
June 23, 2021 — Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes, said Oscar Wilde. So our latest “experience” comes from the Obesity journal, where an unusual correction appeared yesterday. An article published in the journal precisely three months ago posted results for treating obesity that seemed too good to be true. But the paper said this study […]
February 28, 2021 — Is there a political hot button any hotter right now than cancel culture? The BBC aptly suggests these words have become potent weapons in political culture wars. A former president, voted out of office, defends himself a victim of cancel culture. The list is long for people who feel like aggrieved victims. So perhaps this […]
October 21, 2020 — The human impulse for bigotry is strong. Lifestyle Medicine, an open access journal, offered up a potent illustration of this yesterday. The journal published a dubious study of a weak association between a poor measure of intelligence and obesity. It’s hard to know why, but scientific merit doesn’t explain it. Nor can any excuse justify […]
August 21, 2020 — Trust is fragile. But the fragile currency of trust is the foundation for advancing science in peer-reviewed publications. Ethical journals work hard with authors and reviewers to ensure that their publications are trustworthy. Journals also have a process for correcting errors that slip into publications. Retraction is an option that’s necessary when errors invalidate a […]
August 8, 2020 — Correcting errors is such a nuisance. People feel bad about it. Some people simply can’t admit errors, so it can get messy. But errors are inevitable. Thus it’s really important to correct errors when they are discovered. Especially in scientific research. Nonetheless, one journal seems to have a different solution. Nutrients – an open-access nutrition […]
