New Theory Links Depression to Chronic Brain Inflammation

sciencedaily.com

19 pointscwan3 comments

There is a small chance that this is true, however it's far more likely that it's either related to the truth, or simply wrong. Linking to early research like this (complex topic / hard to verify) is generally a waste of time.

PS: I am not saying it does not belong on HN so much as it does not belong anywhere outside of a research community.

Edit: Linking to the actual research would be fine IMO. It's the 2nd hand press release of this stuff that's horrid.

I once asked a research scientist friend, how many studies confirming the same thing do laypeople have to hear about before we can start thinking maybe there's something to the finding?

She said for laypeople, a good rule of thumb is 5 studies of at least 250,000 sample size and all with different funding sources. Though in her field, with multiple large cohorts available, that sample size isn't unusual, so I'm not sure how it applies to other areas of research like this article.

But it's a good reminder not to bother reading these, especially 2nd hand press releases and news reports, unless you've already seen several others previously.

I think this is simply stupid.

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