Recommending Reiki and Qi-gong for Type-2 diabetic patients is unethical nonsense

This study evaluated and compared the effectiveness of Reiki and Qi-gong therapy techniques in improving diabetic patients’ negative emotional states. This quas-experimental research design was carried out at the National Institute of Diabetes and Endocrinology’s Hospital in Cairo, Egypt. It included 200 Type 2 diabetes patients randomized into two equal groups, one for Qigong and one for Reiki techniques. A self-administered questionnaire with a standardized tool (Depression Anxiety Stress Scales [DASS[) was used in data collection. The intervention programs were administered in the form of instructional guidelines through eight sessions for each group.

The results showed that the two study groups had similar socio-demographic characteristics. After implementation of the intervention, most patients in the two groups were having no anxiety, no depression, and no stress. Statistically significant improvements were seen in all three parameters in both groups (p<0.001). The multivariate analysis identified the study intervention as the main statistically significant independent negative predictor of the patients’ scores of anxiety, depression, and stress. Reiki technique was also a statistically significant independent negative predictor of these scores.

The authors conclused that both Reiki and Qi-gong therapy techniques were effective in improving diabetic patients’ negative emotional states of anxiety, depression, and stress, with slight superiority of the Reiki technique. The inclusion of these techniques in the management plans of Type-2 diabetic patients is recommended.

This is an excellent example of how NOT to design a clinical trial!

• If your aim is to test the efficacy of Reiki, conduct a trial of Reiki versus sham-Reiki.
• If your aim is to test the efficacy of Qi-gong, conduct a trial of Qi-gong versus sham-Qi-gong.
• If you compare two therapies in one trial, one has to be of proven and undoubted efficacy.
• Comparing two treatments of unproven efficacy cannot normally lead to a meaningful result.
• It is like trying to solve a mathematical equasion with two unknowns.
• A study that cannot produce a meaningful result is a waste of resorces.
• It arguably also is a neglect of research ethics.
• Even if we disregarded all these flaws and problems, recommending therapies for routine use on the basis of one single study is irresponsible nonsense.

All this is truly elementary and should be known by any researcher (not to mention research supervisor). Yet, in the realm of so-called alternative medicine (SCAM), it needs to be stressed over and over again. The ‘National Institute of Diabetes and Endocrinology’s Hospital in Cairo’ (and all other institutions that produce such shameful pseudoscience) urgently need to get their act together:

you are doing nobody a favour!