Alarm bells? I’m not sure I follow. What’s “this” kind of paper? Their methods seem rational. Many references on previous research are mentioned. Do you think we’re being gaslighted or something?
I wouldn’t use this paper to make life decisions on my mental health or assume theanine will give me super powers, but that’s with all research. Nothing exists in a vacuum and shouldn’t be interpreted that way. Overall, I’d say this is potentially interesting for someone researching these chemicals.
I read the paper. I don't think it is bad. They don't actually make many claims in their conclusions. I do worry about the N (they don't attempt any sort of effect size analysis, but that is, unfortunately, common enough), and I have a some quibbles with how they do their response time analysis, but otherwise the methods are rational, and conservative.
Just because a whole bunch of news articles make big claims about a small little research paper like this, doesn't mean that the paper or authors did.
I wouldn’t use this paper to make life decisions on my mental health or assume theanine will give me super powers, but that’s with all research. Nothing exists in a vacuum and shouldn’t be interpreted that way. Overall, I’d say this is potentially interesting for someone researching these chemicals.