The DOI matches its Crossref record; 7 of the 7 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Evidence-Based Medicine and the Problem of Healthy Volunteers
Open accessAbstract
Healthy controls are subjects without the disease being studied but may have other conditions indirectly affecting outcome. In the present epidemics of obesity a few subjects with undiagnosed nonalcoholic fatty liver disease enter clinical studies as controls, producing biased results. Stricter selection criteria should be considered to prevent this risk.
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The use of only healthy older adults demonstrates a bias towards the healthy population.
“Additionally, this also demonstrates a bias towards the healthy population [46].”
From Smart Speakers for Health and Well-Being of Older Adults: A Mixed-Methods Review (2025) · cites this paper as [46]
Citations
Cites
Independent predictors of liver fibrosis in patients with nonalcoholic steatohepatitis
Angulo, P., Keach, J. C., Batts, K., & Lindor, K. (1999) · Hepatology · doi:10.1002/hep.510300604 · Cited by 1,708
Updated definitions of healthy ranges for serum alanine aminotransferase levels
Prati, D., Taioli, E., Zanella, A., Torre, E. D., Butelli, S., Del Vecchio, E., Vianello, L., Zanuso, F., Mozzi, F., Milani, S., et al. (2002) · Annals of Internal Medicine · doi:10.7326/0003-4819-137-1-200207020-00006 · Cited by 1,445
MOFRAD, P., Contos, M. J., Haque, M., Sargeant, C., Fisher, R. A., Luketic, V. A., Sterling, R. K., Shiffman, M. L., Stravitz, R. T., & Sanyal, A. J. (2003) · Hepatology · doi:10.1053/jhep.2003.50229 · Cited by 1,199
Fracanzani, A., Valenti, L. N., Bugianesi, E., Andreoletti, M., Colli, A., Vanni, E., Bertelli, C., Fatta, E., Bignamini, D., Marchesini, G., et al. (2008) · Hepatology · doi:10.1002/hep.22429 · Cited by 692
Self-citationImpact of Obesity on Drug Metabolism and Elimination in Adults and Children
Brill, M. J., Diepstraten, J., van Rongen, A., van Kralingen, S., van den Anker, J. N., & Knibbe, C. (2012) · Clinical Pharmacokinetics · doi:10.2165/11599410-000000000-00000 · Cited by 382
Siddiqui, M. S., Sterling, R. K., Luketic, V. A., Puri, P., Stravitz, R. T., Bouneva, I., Boyett, S. L., Fuchs, M. A., Sargeant, C., Warnick, G. R., et al. (2013) · Gastroenterology · doi:10.1053/j.gastro.2013.08.036 · Cited by 94
Takyar, V., Nath, A., Beri, A., Gharib, A., & Rotman, Y. (2017) · Hepatology · doi:10.1002/hep.29247 · Cited by 27
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Ives-Deliperi, V. L., & Butler, J. T. (2020) · Epilepsy & Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.yebeh.2020.107686 · Cited by 102
Yang, M., Wang, J., Xiao, W., & Fan, X. (2024) · Frontiers in Medicine · doi:10.3389/fmed.2024.1410668 · Cited by 60
A systematic review of fMRI neurofeedback reporting and effects in clinical populations
Tursic, A., Eck, J., Lührs, M., Linden, D. E. J., & Goebel, R. (2020) · NeuroImage Clinical · doi:10.1016/j.nicl.2020.102496 · Cited by 70
“Although they pose a question of defining what exactly is a healthy participant (Marchesini et al., 2017; Pavletic, 2020) and may not in itself control for any clinical neurofeedback effects, they still do provide essential information regarding the “ideal/healthy” response or performance of the task or, in other word…”
BackgroundLooking into a new era for the approach of metabolic (dysfunction) associated fatty liver disease
Valencia-Rodríguez, A., Vera-Barajas, A., Chavez-Tapia, N., Uribe, M., & Méndez-Sánchez, N. (2020) · Annals of Hepatology · doi:10.1016/j.aohep.2020.04.001 · Cited by 23
Sukhram, S. D., Yilmaz, G., & Gu, J. (2022) · Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity · doi:10.1155/2022/1061274 · Cited by 28
“Therefore, as discussed by Marchesini et al. [43], the terms “ volunteer ” and “ normal range ” also present di ffi culties in evidence-based medicine.”
Evaluation of Th17 and Treg cytokines in patients with unexplained recurrent pregnancy loss
Farshchi, M., Abdollahi, E., Saghafi, N., Hosseini, A., Fallahi, S., Rostami, S., Rostami, P., Rafatpanah, H., & Habibagahi, M. (2022) · Journal of Clinical and Translational Research · doi:10.18053/jctres.08.202203.001 · Cited by 22
“For example, the impact of seminal plasma on the expansion of Tregs may provide a novel therapeutic intervention that has already been used in assisted reproductive technologies [92-94].”
BackgroundVölter, C., Götze, L., Dazert, S., Thomas, J. P., & Kamin, S. T. (2023) · Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience · doi:10.3389/fnagi.2023.1220184 · Cited by 16
“Further, the “supernormal” control group does not represent the general population and differences between the two groups might be overestimated (Marchesini et al., 2017).”
Smart Speakers for Health and Well-Being of Older Adults: A Mixed-Methods Review
Dino, M. J., Leinbach, C., Dino, G., Thiamwong, L., Villafuerte, C. M., Shattell, M., Pimentel, J., Zamora, M. A., Bautista, A., Vitug, J. P., et al. (2025) · Healthcare · doi:10.3390/healthcare13212772 · Cited by 5
“Additionally, this also demonstrates a bias towards the healthy population [46].”
How community members in Uganda perceive controlled human infection studies
Nazziwa, W., Neema, S., Elliot, A., Kaboko, S. B., Ecuru, J., & Mwaka, E. (2025) · Research ethics · doi:10.1177/17470161251355985 · Cited by 2
“By definition therefore, in a clinical study a “healthy participant” is a “per-son who does not have the disorder or the disease being studied, but may have other disorders that are not addressed in the specific setting of the research” (Marchesini et al., 2017).”
Plasma fatty acids depletion: A metabolic signature related to colon cancer
Chaplin, A., Rodríguez, R. M., Barceló-Nicolau, M., Pérez-Romero, K., Maimó-Barceló, A., Gassió, M., Ramis-Cabrer, D., Usamentiaga, E., Martínez, M. A., Amengual, I., et al. (2025) · International Journal of Cancer · doi:10.1002/ijc.70015 · Cited by 1
Inflammatory biomarkers in complex regional pain syndrome: A systematic review and meta-analysis.
Frare, J. M., Rodrigues, P., Kittel, L., Ruviaro, N. A., Antoniazzi, C. T. D. D., & Trevisan, G. (2026) · Journal of Pain · doi:10.1016/j.jpain.2026.106330
Han, J. E., Park, M., Jin, J., Lee, J.-A., Park, G., Park, J. S., Bae, H.-I., Yun, S., Seo, A., Han, M.-H., et al. (2023) · Journal of Clinical Medicine · doi:10.3390/jcm12093080
“Introduction In a clinical study, “healthy control” is defined as a person who does not have the disorder or disease being studied but may have other disorders that are not addressed in the specific setting of the research [1].”
Background
Metadata
- Authors
- Marchesini, G., Marchignoli, F., & Petta, S.
- Affiliations
- University of Bologna (IT)
- University of Palermo (IT)
- Corresponding author
- Marchesini, Giulio
- Venue
- Annals of Hepatology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2017-11
- Volume
- 16
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 832-834
- ISSN
- 1665-2681 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2765177645
- Cited by
- 13
- References
- 7
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 2 · 2020: 3
- FWCI
- 0.65
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Annals of Hepatology (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Archivio istituzionale della ricerca (Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna) (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Nova Science Publishers (Nova Science Publishers, Inc.) (submittedVersion)
- INFM-OAR (INFN Catania) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Funders
- Università di Bologna
- Departamento de Ingeniería Mecánica, Universidad de Chile
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Hepatology › Liver Disease Diagnosis and Treatment
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Ethics in Clinical Research
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Statistics and Probability › Statistical Methods in Epidemiology
- Keywords
- healthy controls, healthy volunteers, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, obesity, confounding, selection criteria, bias in clinical trials, outcome measurement
- MeSH terms
- Humans, Liver Function Tests, Obesity, Predictive Value of Tests, Reference Values, Patient Selection, Evidence-Based Medicine, Healthy Volunteers, Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
