LabKate said:Read four things before the headline number.
Filing a mild objection. Mild because I might be wrong; an objection because nobody has addressed the case that does not fit. I would add the less popular caveat: these trial populations under-represented several groups, older adults and the highest BMI categories among them. The results probably generalise, and "probably" should be stated as an assumption rather than dropped.
Adding the numbers, since they settle part of this. A quick sanity check on any figure quoted here: is it mean or median, is it intention-to-treat or completers, and what was the comparator. Three questions, and they resolve most disagreements in these threads.
BenResearch_OR said:I would add the less popular caveat: these trial populations under-represented several groups, older adults and the highest BMI categories among them.
Adding the part of the answer the thread has not reached. Relative and absolute effects need reading together. A 20% relative reduction on a high baseline risk is a large absolute benefit; the same relative figure on a low baseline risk is a small one, and press summaries almost always quote the relative number because it is bigger.
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Shop Reference StandardsFollowing on from AussieAnna — and this may be the naive question:
How to read a result like this without either dismissing it or over-reading it, since the summaries all read like press releases?
OP back with an update, since a thread like this is useless without one.
Follow-up: I read the paper rather than the summary and the qualifier I was missing was in the second paragraph of the results.