How does their access to that data harm me in any way, direct or indirect?

Your point is a good one, but the full article makes clear that the studies used in the meta-analysis do not, when considered together, suggest either that AA is more effective than other treatments or that AA is more effective than nothing at all.

Those are all very good points (except about the small sample size - both studies I cited are meta-analyses, or studies of other studies). It is free. There is also not evidence that it helps people stop drinking. The things you describe are all very good theoretical reasons it might help people stop drinking, but…

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, as demonstrated by this meta-analysis.

Just in case there are folks who doubt the assertion that AA doesn’t work, follow this link to a meta-analysis of the available research that says that there is not currently sufficient evidence to suggest that AA is effective.

Why don’t countries in which pregnant women drink in moderation have higher rates of FAS and other birth defects?

For a good scientific review, see work done by Ted Kaptchuk at Harvard, who studies placebo effects, and has identified many of the mechanisms by which placebos produce effects, beyond regression to the mean.

Also worth mentioning that, thanks to the regulatory structure around ‘supplements,’ much of the melatonin you buy contains either no melatonin or way, way too much. In fact, even the smallest OTC doses are wildly higher than the doses used in clinical tests, so it might actually be kind of good that the odds are good…

You are, in fact, entirely correct.

It’s worse than that. Much of this advice will make insomnia significantly worse, and is actively contradicted by scientific findings about the way people sleep.

They also published way too early. There is a lot of variability in neural architecture, and their apparent precision is misleading. fMRI data seems to be very accurate because it’s got a lot of numbers with a lot of decimal places in them, but there are some serious statistical limitations (that are still…

You’re not wrong.

Nooooo! Wada tests are fun. I’ve always wanted to have one done.

The only offensive part is that she meant the vulva, not the vagina.

Let’s imagine that you’re reading Shakespeare. You don’t care very much, so you don’t read it very carefully. Later, you’re asked about what you read. Your response is, “Shakespeare must be a bad author, because I don’t remember anything.” You are incorrect.

I remain a big fan of SugarSync. Much easier to not change the way one works and simply have multiple machines behave as if they were the same.

Her age does seem unclear (probably not to her, of course), but I haven’t seen any indication that she is under 18. Have you?

Seriously. Everyone involved is an adult. There are lots of good reasons to mock him, but this isn’t one of them.

An anti-woman slant? I don’t see that. I also don’t see a misandronistic slant to it. I think it’s describing one problem, and I pointed out that there is another, related problem that can also happen.

To the extent that it bothers you, you should definitely talk to your prescriber about that. There are sometimes either alternate medications or medications that can be added that can reduce the effect. And there are more behavioral techniques that can help as well.