ALS News Today Forums Forums ALS Progress ALS News Bulbar-onset ALS in Elderly Patients May Lead to Shorter Survival, Study Says

  • Dagmar

    Member
    May 5, 2019 at 5:19 pm

    In my opinion, this is another example of the many “needless” studies coming along that not only are a waste of funds, but only prove the obvious and don’t “move the ball forward.”

    In essence, people aged 80+, who had Bulbar-onset ALS, lived 13 months less than similar patients younger than 80 years of age. Older people die sooner than younger people?  In the study, from January 1995 to December 2017, only 50 out of 1,083 were over 80 years of age. Researchers followed patients for 12 years to reach this conclusion.

    Let’s advocate for responsible, productive research!

  • Jean-Pierre Le Rouzic

    Member
    May 7, 2019 at 2:45 am

    > Let’s advocate for responsible, productive research!

    I am in, but people think too much of scientific papers. This is well known and had made the matter of several editorials in the prestigious review Nature: Real science is rare, one third of academic papers are just junk and most studies cannot be replicated including famous ones.

    There are web sites dedicated to separate the junk from the valuable works: replicationwatch, pubpeer, etc…

    Most of the papers that are published did not need much time to be written. Sometimes even only hours (I have been witness to one case). I think this one is of the same league (it is a retrospective study).

  • Dagmar

    Member
    May 7, 2019 at 12:01 pm

    Well said, Jean-Pierre!

    Taking the easy road: a retrospective study.

    Another good website that separates junk from fact is: alsuntangled.  Their focus is on checking out scam, alternative and off-label “cures” and treatments for ALS.

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