Hi thetjs,

Pubmed is my go to or you can try Google Scholar. Otherwise, depending on the medical field there are specific ones. For example there is one specifically for physiotherapy (and embarassingly I can't remember it off the top of my head). You'll come across a lot of research papers that are pay to access but I've been told if you email the authors they'll often provide it to you for free; however, I've never tried this.

Keep in mind your circle of competence. For example, in physiotherapy there are plenty of studies showing "core exercises" help back pain. This was debunked a number of years ago; however, you'll still find plenty of practitioners promoting this (including the private hospital I used to work at August of last year). A systematic review is much more robust than an individual study. For individual studies look for double blind, randomised control trials with large enough sample sizes and no conflicts of interest. For example who's paying for the study? I remember a study showing the benefits of cranberry juice for exercise and guess who was paying for the study? The cranberry industry. Then look if others have been able to repeat the results (more studies the better, systematic review even better).

Hope that helps and if you have any other questions I'm happy to elaborate.

Greatly appreciated CA!

I'll dive in and reach out if I have anything specific to bounce off of you.

And I never realised that the Cranberry Industry was this cloak and dagger!!

Cheers.

I hope this doesn’t come across as too negative but my advice is don’t bother. For most of the reasons outlines by CA - it’s outside your area of competence

most doctors nurses physios and other health practitioners are unable to interpret a research paper adequately. I include myself in that number, despite having training specifically in this area. I am only confident to understand papers that are within my own niche. I’m happy to read and criticise failings on the structure of trial design that are generalisable to any trial. But the positive outcomes and conclusions drawn from many trials just aren’t supported by the results. Rates of 20-30% are often quoted. Numerous prestigious publications publish these papers, despite having gone through extensive peer review by experts in the field. This doesn’t imply corruption or malfeasance just how complex data interpretation and trial design is. It is only many years later when other groups try to reproduce the same results in subsequent trials that it becomes clear that the reported benefit just isn’t there

there is no way the average clinician or indeed lay person can pick their way through the necessary tangle of bias, statistics and confounding factors!

As an aside, and hopefully not repeating myself too often:

it doesn’t always matter if the science is any good! What matters is if the product sells. (A2 milk, anyone?)

insert Jerry McGuire quote.

Hey Chagsy,

Not negative and a very valid point.

I have no tickets on myself in relation to flicking through a research paper and understanding it at a sufficiently deep level. The intent was more of a higher level browse as in a few (many) cases med stocks do tend to claim that they are the only ones globally solving their relevant problem and having the ability for a broad search to see if someone somewhere has already taken a stab at the issue can help bring some of a companies claims into focus.

Though, it does also have the ability to further confuse and obscure an investors conviction on both the positive and negative side.

insert JEPG of the young kid with the big head from Jerry McGuire