Tell me about it. I'm not sure it can be rooted out of the media, but I can at least demand Jez does a teeny tiny bit of fact-checking, and try to get others to do the same. I don't even have any degrees in the hard sciences; I'm just cynical and know where the money is.

The problem is that this study provides not a scrap of credible evidence that thyme oil has any effect on menstrual cramps. Nor is there any pharmacological reason to believe thyme oil has a painkilling effect. It's traditionally used for pain by aromatherapists; that's all.

There isn't a compound in thyme oil which acts as a painkiller. Aromatherapists claim it reduces pain; nobody else does. Thyme oil has actually been used as part of a placebo "painkiller" in experiments. The study is described here as part of a discussion by the NHS on the placebo effect. http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/com…

Honestly, the study is so shoddy that it's unlikely that thyme oil has any particular effect above and beyond the placebo one of rubbing a scented oil in, which will also relax the muscles. There's no reason to believe thyme oil has any painkilling properties, or that these would be relevant to menstrual cramps…

Also, as noted by hecticglow for anyone who's not yet seen her comment, NO benefit was found for thyme oil over the ibuprofen. They were statistically indistinguishable. The Inquisitr write-up is heavily slanted and factually inaccurate, and the original journal article is the scientific equivalent of junk mail.

The horror of Alzheimer's is that you can physically live for decades with very little cognitive function or personality left. Living 12 years after onset doesn't prove anything.

Going to the source, you can also find that a follow-up study with 150ish participants was published this month. It seems like decent research and the journals publishing it are legit.

Well spotted. I looked up the original article, as I always do, because a good 95% of the time these stories are reported misleadingly. I spotted that the journal is seriously dubious and the thyme oil was "donated", but missed the fact in my skim-read that there was not even any statistical benefit for the thyme oil.

Not to always be the Cold Hard Science person, but:

The sample size for this isn't appalling at all. For an invasive, intensive, and expensive-to-run study, like this, it's very respectable. The firm extrapolations from it that can be made, however, will be limited by the sample size, as people working in the field will know. If it were really that "appalling",…

For a study this invasive, that's pretty good. I mean, if you're just getting people to complete surveys or following up on outpatient treatment outcomes, you want a participant no. in the hundreds, but for a study where participants were provided with every meal AND had their urine and faeces regularly tested, that's…

I am loving the coining of "pseuicides". Nice work.

This troll is weak and a loser, but I did at least get an incredulous laugh out of the "women don't say cunt" bit. I was almost tempted to respond just to assert my happy existence as a very much female, pregnant in fact, proud cunt-saying lady. (And another rape survivor, so whatever, trolldude.)

Nothing like a family singalong to "Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch-a Me".

You could be right. But if some of these guys get out? I don't know. And it does seem that they get some kind of validation from the murderers' notoriety.

Yeah, I get that. But evidently a lot of people (including Jez readers) did assume that it came from data-mining pregnancy-related purchases, and I can understand why.

Well, the size of the snafu and the fact it was sent to reams of people, including men, who aren't even proximally connected to child-having wasn't clear at first. Women who've suffered a miscarriage, stillbirth or repeated fertility problems probably presumed Shutterfly had bought data showing them as pregnant…

What IS the psychology of women who fall in love with and marry imprisoned murderers? Like, pursue them aggressively in many cases? I understand lots of the weird kinks of human psychology, but this one has me puzzled. Saying it's just "I can change him" cranked up to 11 seems simplistic.

Yeah, you can see both my ribs and hipbones fairly clearly, and I have more than enough "fat to be healthy". I just store it different places, mostly my thighs and arse with a side of boobs.

No way! First time I've ever run across another Jezzie in the vicinity. Hi!