The current evidence sits at 3 or 4 in this list. That’s still not randomized controlled trials but those happen to be much harder to run than the prior levels in the pyramid. I see the current evidence as meriting the RCT but maybe you see it differently?
I didn’t see case-control studies or cohort studies. You should link to those.
Before and after photos are prone to manipulation and bias Take a photo with your jaw pulled back for the before and then one with your jaw projected forward for the after. Use better lighting for after. Even if the person is not consciously intending to, these are so easy to manipulate.
Maybe surgery was done in some of those photos and the poster is not being forthcoming about that, if they have something to sell.
I agree on the “if they have something to sell” but there really isn’t much to sell here. Chew hard food, practice better posture and lip tape at night. It’s not a financially viable industry to sell in.
Occasionally people sell gum. But they aren’t rolling in riches in the process of selling gum.
Sometimes people facilitate accountability groups and there’s a finance factor there but it’s not very common. And that’s a private coaching group, it takes work to maintain.
Yes photos are open to manipulation by lighting and some are like that but I don’t think all of them are manipulated.
The cohorts are the studies of countries or societies with access to different diets. Weston price did that in the 1930s and looked at the skull records which are hard to fake (and hard to verify for others trying to validate his work). But it’s harder to find recent cohorts with strict diet limits.
I’ll try to dig up the case studies although all this work and it’s likely you will say that case studies are not convincing without rct’s. This is why I never published the draft. It’s a lot of work and it’s not worth my energy to prove the theory to random people on the internet.
Using different countries as cohorts introduces all sorts of confounding factors.
People will put forward a biased case even without a financial incentive. Maybe a person genuinely believes that the weight-loss or skincare regimen they followed worked, and they want to put the best case forward so other people benefit from it, so they use the worst Before and best After photo to be more convincing. People who saw no difference won’t post at all.
The reason RCTs exist is because time and time again we’ve seen that looking at anecdotes and individual case studies leads to conclusions that turn out to be wrong when you RCT them. Might seem nitpicky but you just end up wrong half the time otherwise.
I believe that we need an rct but without subjective wins from the gradually mounting evidence, the whole conversation is me pushing uphill for a cause that I’m only a bit motivated to prove to other people.
I’m confident for myself but the potential cause area needs more research.
The evidence for mewing just doesn’t seem to be there. You give a lot of theory and anecdote and before/after photos, which aren’t worth much. The main proper source I see you list is https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/70/9/759/5872832?login=false, which itself seems to admit that there’s a lack of evidence for it
One piece of evidence that feels convincing to me while still being anecdotal is the google images page for “mewing before and after”
https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=b59cd4dbe0a194eb&sxsrf=AHTn8zon1EAYpPRhYbygOoHRzOeof93GlA:1740266143676&q=mewing+before+and+after&udm=2&fbs=ABzOT_CWdhQLP1FcmU5B0fn3xuWpA-dk4wpBWOGsoR7DG5zJBr1qLlHFB6ZBcx-Arq68_wdJlnBwAHirUEMwdE4O8L3EsOBFudme3Tao3KPzT2BTFK5Z7JuPMxKZBMYVPqa-00-_f9CmdNmTUXzgQ7vPp3ChppYRWHxEMFYTZzrvgqh9i5jkr_SnWZ9F_SmwYzbtLLpQf6bCsYahVhoF5ifkXkrkPY9ZfQ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj4x7vKtNiLAxWgqFYBHbucLFwQtKgLegQIFxAB&biw=1920&bih=953&dpr=1
What you can find is a variety of people’s photos in generally self-posted format claiming to have achieved results via mewing.
Some of those may include surgical assistance but I take most of those photos for what they are at face value—mewing produces results.
Do you have an alternative explanation of what’s going on there? Why are there all these images that seem to point towards mewing?
What evidence would you need to be convinced that mewing is a fruitful endeavor?
Looking at the hierarchy of evidence—https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy_of_evidence (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy_of_evidence#/media/File:Research_design_and_evidence.svg)
animal and laboratory studies
case reports or case series
case control studies
cohort studies
randomized controlled trials
meta-analysis systematic review
clinical practice guidelines
The current evidence sits at 3 or 4 in this list. That’s still not randomized controlled trials but those happen to be much harder to run than the prior levels in the pyramid. I see the current evidence as meriting the RCT but maybe you see it differently?
I didn’t see case-control studies or cohort studies. You should link to those.
Before and after photos are prone to manipulation and bias
Take a photo with your jaw pulled back for the before and then one with your jaw projected forward for the after. Use better lighting for after. Even if the person is not consciously intending to, these are so easy to manipulate.
Maybe surgery was done in some of those photos and the poster is not being forthcoming about that, if they have something to sell.
I agree on the “if they have something to sell” but there really isn’t much to sell here. Chew hard food, practice better posture and lip tape at night. It’s not a financially viable industry to sell in.
Occasionally people sell gum. But they aren’t rolling in riches in the process of selling gum.
Sometimes people facilitate accountability groups and there’s a finance factor there but it’s not very common. And that’s a private coaching group, it takes work to maintain.
Yes photos are open to manipulation by lighting and some are like that but I don’t think all of them are manipulated.
The cohorts are the studies of countries or societies with access to different diets. Weston price did that in the 1930s and looked at the skull records which are hard to fake (and hard to verify for others trying to validate his work). But it’s harder to find recent cohorts with strict diet limits.
I’ll try to dig up the case studies although all this work and it’s likely you will say that case studies are not convincing without rct’s. This is why I never published the draft. It’s a lot of work and it’s not worth my energy to prove the theory to random people on the internet.
Using different countries as cohorts introduces all sorts of confounding factors.
People will put forward a biased case even without a financial incentive. Maybe a person genuinely believes that the weight-loss or skincare regimen they followed worked, and they want to put the best case forward so other people benefit from it, so they use the worst Before and best After photo to be more convincing. People who saw no difference won’t post at all.
The reason RCTs exist is because time and time again we’ve seen that looking at anecdotes and individual case studies leads to conclusions that turn out to be wrong when you RCT them. Might seem nitpicky but you just end up wrong half the time otherwise.
I agree.
I believe that we need an rct but without subjective wins from the gradually mounting evidence, the whole conversation is me pushing uphill for a cause that I’m only a bit motivated to prove to other people.
I’m confident for myself but the potential cause area needs more research.