Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more
All shall have pills
SOME time ago Feedback noticed posters plugging nutritional supplements, exhorting us to buy 鈥渉is鈥� and 鈥渉er鈥� pills from Vitabiotics, and shrugged. We started from a sceptical stance on the benefits of supplements, especially for the people who buy them 鈥� who probably have a more balanced diet than those who don鈥檛. We were more sceptical still when it came to separate pills for women鈥檚 and men鈥檚 subtly different recommended daily amounts. One effect of the division would seem to be that twice as many pills would lurk untaken in certain bathroom cabinets, increasing sales.
Recently we have spotted the company a plethora of pregnancy-related pills: Pregnacare庐 Original, Plus and Max; Pregnacare庐 Breastfeeding; Pregnacare庐 New Mum; Pregnacare庐 Conception; ; and, for that feeling of togetherness, . If there鈥檚 some kind of quantum limit for this kind of subdivided advertising, they must be approaching it. Perhaps the next step will be a super-specific supplement to be taken only during the hour before conception? Or during?
Advertisement
Tesco supermarket鈥檚 labelling helpfully informed Geoffrey Thomas that what he had bought was 鈥渇reezer safe鈥�: 鈥淚ndeed,鈥� he says of his ice-cube trays, 鈥淚 hope so鈥�
Keep taking the tablets
SEARCHING for research on the efficacy of vitamin supplements, Feedback noticed that Vitabiotics the paper 鈥溾��, published in the British Journal of Nutrition in 2010. Out of 353 women featured in this study, only 39 per cent reported having taken the specified pills or placebos. In the jargon, they were 鈥渃ompliant鈥� with the study. Among these women there was a statistically significant (small) effect on the size and weight of their babies.
Correlations between birth size and weight, and vitamin and mineral deficiencies 鈥� that 鈥渘utrient status鈥� 鈥� were weak and patchy. Feedback concludes that just taking the pills, or perhaps just reporting 鈥渃ompliantly鈥�, had a stronger effect than what was in them. The authors aren鈥檛 the first to conclude that 鈥渇urther larger studies are required鈥�. We wonder whether it鈥檚 the psychology of compliance that these studies should look into.
Enthusiasm for exercise
GOOD news for those who don鈥檛 get around to proper exercise. A blog in The New York Times a concluding that 鈥淥ver all [sic], the data reveal that 鈥榮ex can be considered, at times, a significant exercise鈥�.鈥� It adds that researcher Antony Karelis therefore believes that sex is worth encouraging in people who otherwise balk at working out.
Ninety-eight per cent of Karelis鈥檚 volunteers reported that sex felt more fun than jogging. Feedback notes that the study included 21 couples, so that other 2 per cent was one individual.
Determinism of heart health
FEEDBACK thanks the Journal of Improbable Research for alerting us to new research on nominative determinism 鈥� the name given by Feedback reader C. R. Cavonius to the phenomenon of people鈥檚 names appearing to influence their occupation or publishing history (17 December 1994). The latest finding, in the BMJ鈥榮 year-end issue, is that among people in Dublin with the surname Brady, 鈥渢he unadjusted odds ratio for pacemaker implantation [required due to the condition bradycardia] was 2.27 (95% confidence interval 1.13 to 4.57).鈥� Whether changing one鈥檚 name is protective, we know not.
Improbable Research also to the existence of whose authors include a Wong and a Wright 鈥� which it dubs 鈥渘ominative indeterminism鈥�.
Nominatively environmental
THE above leads us to break our many resolutions of abjuration and mention David Green of the Clean Energy Council; Paul Collier, author of Why Coal Production Must End; and Terry Marsh, hydrologist.
Thanks to Luke McGuiness, Robin Hanan and Ian Nelson.
Overcrowding in Australia
LOOKING up their phone number on a free public 鈥渞everse phone directory鈥�, a reader was a little startled to be informed that 鈥淚n 2006, there were 14,267 persons usually resident鈥� at their address: 鈥�51.7% were males and 48.3% were females. Of the total population鈥� 3.7% were Indigenous persons, compared with 2.3% Indigenous persons in Australia.鈥� (Digits have been changed to protect the reader鈥檚 remaining privacy.)
The service went on to list the marital status and religious affiliation of the population of the reader鈥檚 address. Feedback wonders how much we would have to pay to find out how many of the alleged population of this one house were registered to vote, for whom, how early and how often.
Things we鈥檇 rather not know
FINALLY, software that logs our every online interaction 鈥� called the 鈥淏ig Brother engine鈥� by a practitioner of Feedback鈥檚 acquaintance 鈥� is producing more insights into human behaviour, including grisly ones of which we would rather have remained ignorant. For example, Dave Smith sends a screenshot of assuring him that those who bought the textbook Gray鈥檚 Anatomy also bought a slew of other anatomical texts 鈥� and black-handled kitchen scissors.