Conflicting interpretations of rosemary oil study

[nomadreid]

TL;DR Summary

A study in a peer-reviewed journal gives some indication that rosemary oil may contribute in some cases to a slight improvement in memory; a critique of this finding in an article holds that the study was not rigorous enough. I include the two links. On one side, the journal in question has higher standing than the article source, on the other hand it does sound a little like folk medicine. I include the two links.

The journal in question is the International Journal of Neuroscience, which appears to be a respectable peer-reviewed journal. I give a link to a reproduction in a secondary source, with a note that I am not addressing the more subjective "mood" part of the paper: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/10808709_Aromas_of_rosemary_and_lavender_essential_oils_differentially_affect_cognition_and_mood_in_healthy_adults

The critique, admittedly not in a peer-reviewed journal but nonetheless appearing to bring up points which may be of importance (or not: I am not a biologist), is here:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sniffing-rosemary/

I am not qualified to judge where the golden mean here lies. I am always wary of ideas that support folk medicine, but on the other hand, it would be silly to reject something only because it agrees with folk medicine. So I will be grateful for a more qualified judgment.

 

[jim mcnamara]

I agree with your "folklore" interpretation. The science seems a bit hand-wavy to me. Researchgate has a lot of papers that have not been peer reviewed. Some are. That does not mean that a well designed study will or will not support the findings. It is an open question.

 

[nomadreid]

Thank you very much, jim mcnamara.

One aspect that throws me off is that, although I cited Researchgate (which I know is not a peer-reviewed source), my understanding was that it was reproducing an article exactly as it appeared in a peer-reviewed journal (International Journal of Neuroscience).

Of course I understand that even peer-reviewed journals publish some hand-wavy stuff, but it is every time a disappointment...

 

[atyy]

I'm not sure if the critique's interpretation of Shakespeare is correct, so the critique itself may be hand wavy.

Looking at the paper, they do many statistical comparisons, and consider p<0.05 to be significant. As we already know, one gets a p<0.05 by chance every now and then. mfb mentions this in a different area of study in this post https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/what-is-supersymmetry.999708/post-6464033. An adjustment for multiple comparisons correction can help https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_comparisons_problem. They could also try to confirm the hypotheses by collecting more data.