TOPIC: ARGUMENT167 - A folk remedy* for insomnia, the scent in lavender flowers, has now been proved effective. In a recent study, 30 volunteers with chronic insomnia slept each night for three weeks on lavender-scented pillows in a controlled room where their sleep was monitored. During the first week, volunteers continued to take their usual sleeping medication. They slept soundly but wakened feeling tired. During the second week, the volunteers discontinued their medication. As a result, they slept less soundly than the previous week and felt even more tired. During the third week, the volunteers slept longer and more soundly than in the previous two weeks. This shows that over a short period of time lavender cures insomnia.
*A folk remedy is usually a plant-based form of treatment common to traditional forms of medicine, ones that developed before the advent of modern medical services and technology.
WORDS: 589 TIME: about 00:45:00 DATE: 2007-8-3 17:06:28
提纲
body1 control group缺失
body2 slept tightly and wakened tiredly的问题，分三方面说。主观判断＋劳累它因＋缺失重要症状（不能入睡）
body3 30个代表性的问题和30个人效果的草率推广
Body4 不能证明长期疗效
In this article, the author concludes that a folk remedy for insomnia, the scent in lavender flowers has been proved effective in a study. Yet, close scrutiny of evidence reveals that it lends little credible support to the claim.
To begin with, every medical research needs a control group. The argument cannot rule out the effectiveness of medication. As we know, after taking pills a week, there is remaining dose in the body, which might interrupt the treatment of third week. In other words, the seemingly nice outcome is contributed to the medication, not lavender pillow. A control group is badly needed to rule out the effect of medication. It is more interesting to have a group without treatment, a group only received medication therapy, a group only with scent pillow, , and a group taken medication and pillow both. In addition, author fails to take intro account other flower pillows. It is possible that other flower scent or other specific material in the flowers cure the insomnia.
What is more, the study is based on subjective report whether they slept tightly or wakened tiredly. The subjective feeling is not always accurate to reflect the true effect of treatment. If the patients just have a big fight with other patients before the question is raised, the answer might be incorrect because the patience is thin at that moment. It also might be due to other reasons to cause their tiredness. If they participate some heavy physical work during the day time and go to bed exhaustedly, the tiredness after one night sleep is not contributable to the insomnia but to the heavy work. Further, other than tiredness and not tight sleep, one of the important symptoms of insomnia is that patients hardly go to sleep. The study seems to forget mentioning this important evidence of diagnoses. Without taking into account this variable, we cannot sure that the insomnia be cured or not.
Even if foregoing problems are persuasive, the argument fails to convince us that the 30 volunteers are representative the overall insomnia patients. 30 are a small portion of overall population, therefore what about other patients who suffer from the temporary insomnia? Also, even it cure the 30 patients in the study, we cannot draw a hasty generalization of its effectiveness. Presumably because of the specific scent in the lavender flowers, it pacifies the patient mood. In other words, it might only work on part of insomnia patients whose disease is caused by nervousness or other tensions of nerve. For other patients whose insomnia might due to the gene deficit or other disease s’ side effect, the pillow might be ineffective.
Finally, granted that the pillow treatment is effective in the third weak, it is still unwarranted that insomnia is totally healed. Since insomnia is a chronic disease, a week without symptom cannot prove that the lavender flowers cures insomnia. It is possible that the patients in the study mainly due to pressure of work. After three weeks off work, the symptom is absent because the tension of nerve is released. There is highly possibility that it might happen again when they back to work. Therefore, test of the effectiveness of treatment needs more time for diagnoses: whether it recurs, whether there are side effects.
In sum, the argument is unpersuasive as it stands. To better support the argument, the author need take more experiment with accurate research process, such as control groups. To evaluate it, we are glad to know more detail information about the treatment progress.作者: wangqingtoefl 时间: 2007-8-4 13:58:57
To better support the argument
为To support the argument better吧。。。。