I applaud the authors for their selection of this subject, but especially for publishing the study protocol in advance. If more systematic reviews did this, the results would be more reliable.
Rigorous, well-written study. The authors suggest the possible explanations for their paradoxical findings: ". . . a higher proportion of patients in the group with yoga postures than in the group without yoga postures continued to practice the techniques they had been taught after study week . . ." and ". . . It may be that yoga postures are easier to integrate into daily activities than yoga breathing and meditation techniques."
Unfortunately, the FOA does not define what a "newly independent scientist" is, and requires applicants, though nominally independent, to have "independent peer reviewed research support at the time the award is made," which begs the question: what do they mean by independent? URL: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-19-131.html
Nicely written example of using key informants to better understand a complex assortment of health behaviors. It would have been nice to see more detail about what they open-ended questions were, and how they were developed.
I am very glad to see attribution theory used more to better understand health behaviors. When I worked on a similar paper 10 years ago (on causes of birth defects), very few had used it this way. Good work!
Interesting--the DASH diet recommends only lowfat dairy. That recommendation is not supported by this excellent systematic review. However, as in almost all systematic reviews and meta-analyses, overall study quality is poor.
The "Significance and novelty" section does not address either significance or novelty ("White button, shiitake, and porcini mushrooms were incorporated into wheat bread to evaluate their effects on the dough quality and the physical-textural properties of final bread products." Moreover, the Conclusions section of the abstract focuses on the potential benefits of incorporating mushroom powder, while the description of the findings sound like the addition of this supplements makes for a much less appealing loaf of bread.
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