Understanding Medical Research 101

After getting a comment or two on one of my recent Clarion Ledger op-ed health pieces regarding my use of 2009 research, I decided it was time for a little refresher course on understanding medical research. No, it's not boring, and it's info we can all apply when drawing conclusions about articles based on medical studies.

There are two basic types of medical research - - observational and randomized control trial studies. Just like a the science fair project you did in your youth, the idea is to support or disprove a hypothesis (an idea). The two types differ in how they are conducted and in generalization of results.

Observational studies are just that - - participants carry on with their daily lives as usual and report whatever activity is studied to researchers who may follow and observe them for years. Researchers may also compare the group to another similar random group to note what is alike or different in outcome. An example might be following a group of repeat marijuana male users over the course of twenty years and looking at their medical issues, then comparing them to a similar age group of non- marijuana users to see how they compare in health. The marijuana and testicular cancer study I reported on recently was very similar to this.

A randomized control trial is quite different. Researchers use an intervention such as behavior or a therapy to note how it affects the health of a participant. Like spin the bottle, participants are randomly chosen. For example, researchers might assign a group of random males to run for 10 minutes a day and another random male group to run for an hour a day to note the effects of running on health. It violates ethics to assign potential harmful behaviors to humans, like smoking pot, and thus that type of research is limited to observational studies.

As with any research, its very important to question who paid for the study, who conducted/reported it, how large a sample size is used in the study and is it generalizable to the public. In other words, follow the money.

It can take years to conduct, review, publish and present research whether through journals, conferences or national meetings. Research for 2009 is certainly not considered outdated or unreliable in terms of years. Publication and presentation is a process.

When I review research for potential articles pertinent to Mississippians, I also go through a scrutinous process. I might not like what the research indicates, but if it is reliable, generalizable, and beneficial, I'm interested.