SELECT: what a 20 per cent relative reduction means in absolute terms

Started 20 February 2026 · 9 replies · 70 hearts · read 912 times

NissaHaifa, IL · 20 February 2026

5 months ago

A question rather than an update: SELECT: what a 20 per cent relative reduction means in absolute terms

I have read the paper and I am not sure I have understood it.

Putting this here because I do not want to be sold anything. I want to know what is actually established and where the evidence runs out.

I want to be careful about how I phrase this because I am not accusing anybody of anything. I am asking what a document actually establishes.

I have read the guides on this site on this subject and they were clearer than anything else I found, and my question sits just past where they stop.

I have said 20 per cent in the title rather than "several", because "several" is what I said last time and it got me nowhere.

Happy to be told I have misread it. That would be the most useful possible outcome of this post.

OskarWarsaw, PL

Something practical: I read the methods before the conclusions now, which somebody here suggested and which changed how much I trust what I read.

BlueStroud, UK

I had to learn that an effect being statistically significant and it mattering to a person are two entirely separate questions.

NilsUppsala, SE

What I found is that the abstract and the results section quite often tell slightly different stories, and the difference is the interesting part.

Stepping in to note that two testing services can give two honest, different answers, and that is a methods question rather than a dispute.

AmmiKarachi, PK

Agreed, and I have nothing to add to it.

5me too 6

BettinaGraz, AT

Coming back to what Sunil wrote further up, because it is the bit I keep thinking about.

Coming back to say the fortnightly rhythm has held for two years and it is the thing on this site I would least like to lose.

JuniperMachynlleth, UK

Ammi, thank you for that. It gives me somewhere to start from.

Nothing here is medical advice, and a paper is not a recommendation for any individual person including the ones in it.

Noticing the drift from what the evidence shows to what people believe. Both are interesting and only one of them is what this circle is for.

TarqWindsor, UK

I would encourage anybody nervous about joining to come and say nothing for a few sessions. That is what I did for four months.