Talk:Protandim/Archives/2009/April

Blatant advertising

This page on further investigation seems to be blatant advertising and therefore should be nominated for speedy deletion.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:50, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

It gets 72,300 google hits and 7,420 Clusty hits so we should deal with it. I suggest we say it's unsupported by scientific evidence and put a quack medicine label on it.Mccready (talk) 08:31, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

How many reliable sources do you have for it? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:53, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Pubmed find two references. Uptodate doesn't mention it and neither does emedicine. I still say this is advertising. --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:11, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

There are actually three studies on protandim now appearing on Pubmed as of Apr 25 2009. The titles and Id nos. are Synergistic induction of heme oxygenase-1 by the components of the antioxidant supplement Protandim. 19056485 Protandim, a fundamentally new antioxidant approach in chemoprevention using mouse two-stage skin carcinogenesis as a model.19384424 The induction of human superoxide dismutase and catalase in vivo: a fundamentally new approach to antioxidant therapy.16413416 One is an animal study, another is in vitro, the third is on human subjects. The animal study did use a control group to establish a statistical baseline contrary to what the wikipedia article says, "Neither was double blinded or placebo controlled." The human study did not employ a control group, however a statistical baseline was taken on the test group prior to the beginning of the study and statistical tests were applied to the data to determine probabilities that observed changes were not statistically significant: p = 0.0001 for TBARS decline, p < 0.01 for erythrocyte SOD increase, p < 0.002 for catalase increase. These work out to confidence levels of 99.99%, 99%, and 99.8% respectively, which is pretty good. Furthermore, one of the principle researches is Joe McCord Ph.D Professor of Medicine, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center who according to Pubmed.com, has authored 125 papers. Other researchers authoring these studies also have a number of papers published in peer-reviewed medical literature. These people are not exactly a bunch of incompetent amateurs as comments of Doc James might suggest. Look, I know nutriceutical companies will take some research that only suggests something might be helpful, they run with it, and package it as GRAS product. Then they seem rather oblivious to the possibility of long-term negative effects of their product. Doctors, I know, are really annoyed by this trend and criticize it whenever possible. Perhaps this concern drives contentions that this is poor quality research. However, the Protandim product is based on very good quality research when compared with many nutriceutical products. This wikipedia article should be amended to include all current research - all 3 articles. I think that the comments of Harriet Hall MD on quackbusters.com are a bit arbitrary and biased and if a reference to this article is included, it ought to appear at the end of the list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.176.199.104 (talk) 22:16, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

"confidence levels of 99.99%, 99%, and 99.8%" ?? Surely you jest. Sounds more like made up figures, not the ones one sees in real research. "Joe McCord Ph.D Professor of Medicine" co-inventor, financially involved, and claimed possessor of 4 Nobel prize nominations? Sure, a very neutral source ;-) BTW, Nobel prize nominations are secret, and anyone can "nominate" anyone without it meaning a thing. No, the advertising here needs to stop. Only make specific editorial suggestions. -- Brangifer (talk) 15:18, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I am not affiliated with LifeVantage in any way. I do independent research on nutriceutical products. Perhaps the above comments were a bit off topic. But perhaps discussion of this product is prejudiced a bit by its MLM connection. But I would like to talk about experimental protocols because it is relevant to this discussion. I would like to ask a question. Have you actually examined the study? What kind of statistical test was applied to the data? What was the mode of administration of the product? I would like to know, how one can perform a critical analysis on a research study that they have never seen? The abstract on Pubmed does not provide enough information to answer these questions.

The confidence levels of 99.99%, 99%, and 99.8% are simple conversions of p-values given in the abstract. The p value means the probability that a correlation is not statistically significant. p value of 0.0001 means a 1 in 10000 chance that the tested correlation is not statistically significant. That works out to 99.99% probability that it is. Also let me say something about research study protocols in general and placebo double blind protocol in particular. This study was the first study on humans. At this point, the researches are trying to determine whether the compound exerts an effect on oxidative stress in humans. Lipid peroxidation/TBARS, catalase, and erythrocyte SOD levels are considered meaningful markers of oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is a meaningful and widely studied topic. Taking measurements before and after administration of the compound and applying a test to determine if a statistically significant change occurred is an appropriate protocol for this purpose. There are a number of protocols that are used in clinical studies. The most appropriate depends on what you are measuring and your purpose in measuring it. To say that double-blind placebo controlled protocol is the only one appropriate for all clinical evaluation is simply incorrect. Placebo double-blind is more appropriate for latter stages of the evaluation of a compound or drug when one is trying to study side effects. Whether or not one is experiencing a side effect is a subjective determination. Validation of subjective determination requires a more extensive protocol. However, effectiveness of the compound is generally NOT being evaluated in these cases because that has already been established. So double-blind placebo controlled study in early stages of evaluation would be unnecessary and inefficient. I hope my tone is not patronizing. However, these comments seem appropriate to our discussion.

I respect the opinion and training of "Doc James". I think it is significant that he feels this product may produce negative effects. There is a lot about oxidative stress that is not understood. It is generally agreed that fresh fruits and vegetables reduce risk of cancer. It seems to have something to do with presence of antioxidant compounds. But when the compounds are administered by themselves, there doesn't seem to be any effect. Why is that? This is not really understood. I think Protandim probably exerts a significant effect although I am not sure if it is necessarily a good thing.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but I would most respectfully and humbly suggest that perhaps this article should be rewritten by someone who has taken the time and trouble to obtain copies of all three research studies, examined them carefully, and made a critical analysis of the quality of this research. tell me, is this unreasonable? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.176.199.104 (talk) 00:00, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it is unreasonable. If you don't have a COI (IOW are an MLM seller of Protandim) you are welcome to contribute, but you can't rewrite it. All articles at Wikipedia are written in a collaborative endeavor, often by editors with conflicting POV. It's not easy, but that's the way it works. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:23, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

We are not supposed to do a critical analysis only report what others have written.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:37, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. Here's some advice for our IP editor. If you want to be taken seriously, get an account. There are many advantages and no disadvantages to doing so. Also read WP:NOR, WP:SYNTH, and WP:RS. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:16, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree completely. Perhaps critical analysis is not the best way of putting it. I just mean examine it closely enough to determine if there seem to be any blatant problems. Rather than say what they did not do, describe what they did - be specific, concise and accurate. Provide enough information so the reader gets some idea as to whether or not the protocol is appropriate. Sorry, I haven't done this a lot and I need to get into collaboration mode. I haven't actually seen the human study myself. For all I know, it may be riddled with problems, but if it is a peer-review journal, an editor is generally not going to allow any old trash to appear in their publication.(Entropy7 (talk) 22:59, 29 April 2009 (UTC))

A peer review study has just been finished by LSU and can be found at www.plosone.com search protandim. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.202.36.78 (talk) 01:28, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi Doc James there is 19 other major colleges finishing up their studies on protandim why do they do they these types of studies? Do you think its a waste of time? Maybe you should talk to all the profesionals at LSU and tell them their study was a waste of time and let them know how to conduct proper studies in the future Im sure they would listen to you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 1alexh (talk • contribs) 12:58, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

There is a number of reasons why it has not been studied in large numbers of humans.

1. Ethics approval is very hard to get. Lots of paper work.
2. Running studies on people is expensive.
3. This stuff is not really patented. ie the chemicals that make it up are not protected
4. Sounds like they are already doing well financially from this product. Therefore why would a business risk a good thing. There is a 98% chance it does not work testing it would be like shooting yourself in the foot. By the way the pharma industry only does studies because they are forced to by the FDA. Before this requirement came into place they did not bother showing that their products worked.
5. Before a public group will spend 5 million on a proper study they need to have a good base of evidence.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:45, 30 April 2009 (UTC)