[gwerbret]

Heh...this is a shady study if I ever saw one.

-- Exactly 400 study participants recruited.

-- Exactly 193 of 200 participants completing the study in each group (which, for a study administered in a community setting, is an essentially impossibly-high completion rate).

-- No author disclosures -- in fact, no information about the authors whatsoever, other than their names.

-- No information on exposures, lifestyles, or other factors which invariably influence infection rates.

-- Inappropriate statistical methods, which focus very heavily on p values.

-- Only 3 authors, which for a randomized controlled trial involving hundreds of people in different settings with regular follow-up, seems rather unlikely.

[roflmaostc]

In the PDF they are all titled as

"Assistant Professor, Department of General Medicine, Arundathi Institute of Medical Sciences, Dundigal, Medchal Malkajgiri, Telangana, India"

The 2nd author is listed here: https://aims.ac.in/general-medicine/ I did not find any trace for the other two authors (do they exist?).

Also, look at the timings: Received: 16-09-2025 Accepted: 29-09-2025 Available online: 14-10-2025

That's relatively fast but also the paper is not super in-depth.

And in general it seems like that the "International Journal of Medical and Pharmaceutical Research" is not quite well known. See the Editors, not even pictures there: https://ijmpr.in/editorial-board/

[roflmaostc]

The first author is probably him: Dr. G Naresh (Asst. Prof.)

https://aims.ac.in/general-medicine/

[roncesvalles]

My bullshit meter redlined as well.

> Incidence of ARIs was documented through monthly follow-up visits and self-reported symptom diaries validated by physician assessment.

This is basically impossible to accomplish for 386 participants who aren't in some form of captivity (e.g. incarcerated, institutionalized, in the military, or a boarding school). Nobody cares enough to maintain a "self-reported symptoms diary" and make monthly visits for some study. If they actually ran the study as designed, they would've have zero usable participants even starting from 400.

Saying nothing of the ethics of giving half the Vitamin D deficient patients presenting at your clinic with a placebo.

[givemeethekeys]

> (e.g. incarcerated, institutionalized, in the military, or a boarding school).

That's a pretty big list. Add Retirement communities and your pool increases even more. Add to that the fact that this is India where the population is at least 5x bigger and much more concentrated..

[zahlman]

> It is: Negative, Unproductive, Antagonist, non Factual and frankly futile (unless provocative).

The comment gives clear reasoning and makes claims about the contents of the paper that are supported by reading the paper. To call it "non-factual" is simply incorrect. The word "futile" is nonsensical in this context.

You used three different words to complain that the comment critiques the study. There is nothing wrong with such critique in comments here, and indeed a healthy community requires that critique can rise to the top where it's warranted.

> Have you done an experiment lately to show counter proof? Beside claims what else do you have!

This is completely logically irrelevant, and suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of logic. Pointing out that a study is flawed does not require providing evidence for the opposite of the study's conclusion.

> This paper is very positive

A paper being "positive" has nothing whatsoever to do with whether its finding is correct, and it also has nothing whatsoever to do with whether its methodology is valid, and it also has nothing whatsoever to do with whether it accurately reports what was actually observed (i.e. whether any kind of fraud was involved).

> It is in fact (by personal experience)...

It is fundamentally impossible to know those things "by personal experience". That's why studies exist.

[mapontosevenths]

> It is in fact (by personal experience) essential for the health

You might be right, but this study doesn't show that because it's a genuinely bad study. Someone serious should do a real study on it.

[markhahn]

I think the strongest criticism is just that being short of just about anything would cause significant effects. being short of water, calories, any vitamin, protein, etc.

[kingkawn]

Wanting to agree with a study’s conclusions and so ignoring its weaknesses and red flags is bad scientific practice, further reinforcing the comment questioning the value of this publication