About this episode
In this episode, I explain how to come up with a good question, obtain the background information you need, find research, obtain full texts, organize them, read the different sections of a paper to get the right kind of value out of it, and critically analyze the study design. If you're a beginner, this is really designed for you. If you're more advanced, you'll enjoy the specific examples I give of problems interpreting research studies. This episode is brought to you by US Wellness Meats . Head to grasslandbeef.com and enter "Chris" at checkout to get 15% off your order as long as the final price is over $75 and you order fewer than 40 pounds of meat. You can use "Chris" to get the same discount twice. In this episode, you will find all of the following and more: 0:06:15 How to develop a good question; 0:09:30 How to use pubmed and Google Scholar; 0:11:50 Why and how to use MeSH terms (medical subject headings); 0:16:50 5 ways to get full-texts for free that are totally legal; 0:24:35 How Sci-Hub will facilitate the technological evolution of research distribution and the Spotify-ication of the science publication industry; 0:32:45 How to organize science papers to prevent wasted time and frustration later; 0:34:40 Reference management software; 0:36:35 The anatomy of a science paper; how you should approach each section and what you can learn from it; 0:46:45 Peer review makes discussions within papers more objective; how a scathing peer review from six years ago continues to influence how I teach hormesis today; 0:55:30 Acquiring background information with textbooks; 0:57:35 Specific textbook recommendations; 1:05:15 What you need to do before developing your own point of view; 1:10:30 Strengths and limitations of different study designs; 1:13:47 Observational versus experimental studies and the tradeoffs of context, size, and duration with strength of cause-and-effect inferences; 1:16:50 The central role of randomization in experimental studies; 1:19:20 Randomization needs a high sample size to be effective; 1:21:07 Example: Finnish Mental Hospital Study; 1:22:50 Example: LA Veterans Administration Hospital Study; 1:25:50 Regression to the mean; how a study can show something to be true when it's completely false; change-from-baseline data versus differences-between-groups data; 1:35:45 The need for a control group: Atkins and methylglyoxal study as an example 1:37:35 Compared to what ? Picking the right control group; 1:41:50 The generalizability tradeoff: in vitro and in vivo, animal and human, sex, race, and other population differences; 1:46:47 Contextual patterns determine outcome 1:47:50 Thailand zinc/vitamin A study as an example of nutrient interactions; 1:56:20 Do your homework, assume good faith, ask questions. Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here: https://chrismasterjohnphd.substack.com/p/037-how-to-read-a-science-paper Chris Masterjohn, PhD, is the Founder and Scientific Director of the mitochondria test Mitome .