Even the Best Scientific Studies Can Lie: The Case of Craniosacral Therapy, 2020, Jarry (McGill) meta-analyses

Andy · Feb 8, 2020

There are days when I wish I could say, “Look for a meta-analysis that answers your question and trust it blindly.” Do vitamin supplements work? Look for a meta-analysis! Are sausages bad for your health? Meta-analysis! Will an aspirin a day keep the doctor away? Meta-analysis!

Meta-analyses are often held up as the best form of scientific evidence. Forget relying on doctors reporting on a single case or a string of cases; forget depending on scientists looking backwards in time at a group of people who had an intervention versus another that did not; forget counting on prospective studies; forget even clinging onto a single randomized clinical trial. A meta-analysis has the power to put all of the studies together, synthesize their results, and produce a single magical number. This number can tell you if the intervention works or doesn’t work according to the best evidence we have. Why couldn’t we trust this magical number?

Although meta-analyses are wonderful, they can suffer from one problem: garbage in, garbage out. As an example, if a student takes four tests meant to assess the same aptitude but the tests were badly designed, the fact that the student’s mean score ends up being 92% is irrelevant. If the tests that go into the averaging machine are bad, the final result is just as bad.

We were recently sent a meta-analysis to look at of 10 trials on the use of craniosacral therapy for pain. The conclusion of this meta-analysis is that craniosacral therapy works. But does it?
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https://mcgill.ca/oss/article/pseud...fic-studies-can-lie-case-craniosacral-therapy

Trish · Feb 8, 2020

Ha, I knew it...

But its underlying belief system about the craniosacral rhythm is simply made up. Whenever seasoned professionals have been tested, they have been found to profoundly disagree on what it is that they are feeling through their fingers.
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In my last year at Osteopathy college we were given a special course on the exciting new treatment called Cranial Osteopathy or CranioSacral therapy. The patient lay on their back and you held their head cupped in your hands with your finger tips placed along the base of the skull and you were supposed to be able to feel the 'pulse' of the cerebrospinal fluid. Needless to say I felt nothing, either as therapist or patient. Some of my fellow students convinced themselves they were feeling it...

I can't remember exactly what the treatment we were taught involved, but it seemed to be gentle changes in pressure you applied to parts of the neck and skull.

Some years later a friend and fellow osteopath offered me some free Cranial treatment for my ME. It was a pleasant relax, but needless to say it made f*** all difference to my ME.

It's bunkum.

TiredSam · Feb 8, 2020

A friend of my wife is a practitioner. She performed her art upon my head in our kitchen. My duties as a polite host prevented me from saying "but this is a whole load of ridiculous horse-shit" so I went along with it, much as I would have if someone has asked me if I'd like to hear their two-year-old singing a new song.

Mij · Feb 8, 2020

It's distraction therapy- diverting attention from your wallet.

Art Vandelay · Feb 9, 2020

Ah yes, I've been offered craniosacral therapy as a 'cure' for ME.

Apparently this person was cured of her 'CFS' by it so she became a practitioner herself in order to 'help more people'. (Although given the length of time she was ill, she most likely had a post-viral condition that she spontaneously recovered from.)

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Even the Best Scientific Studies Can Lie: The Case of Craniosacral Therapy, 2020, Jarry (McGill) meta-analyses

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Even the Best Scientific Studies Can Lie: The Case of Craniosacral Therapy, 2020, Jarry (McGill) meta-analyses

Andy Committee Member

Trish Moderator Staff Member

TiredSam Committee Member

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Art Vandelay Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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