The Miraculous Guru with an h-index of 62

 

Guruji Mahendra Kumar Trivedi is an “Enlightened and miraculous being” with a Google Scholar page, an h-index¹ of 62, and 12,031 citations of his work. Most of these are self-citations from a tangled collection of predatory journals that publish questionable papers without proper peer review (e.g., Science Publishing Group).

Guruji Trivedi claims to have the ability to harness his own...

...biofield energy to change the behaviour and characteristics of living organisms including soil, seeds, plants, trees, animals, microbes, and humans, along with non-living materials including metals, ceramics, polymers, chemicals, pharmaceutical compounds and nutraceuticals, etc.

The paper quoted above, Biofield Energy Signals, Energy Transmission and Neutrinos, was published in the American Journal of Modern Physics (Science PG) and explains how “neutrino oscillations” can account for his seemingly supernatural powers:

Based on the information available on neutrino oscillations and biofield and brain computer interface (BCI), Mr. Trivedi’s experimental results are explained by certain postulates. The neutrino oscillations require energy. This is possible by extraordinary individuals, who can negate all stray thoughts (as in meditation or intense concentration) and focus these in a single intended direction. Often, such individuals in this state emit radiation known to be halos (could be linked to photon emission). The thoughts are thus a focused beam of neutral neutrinos and can change into positive and negative on interacting with a receiver object composed of atoms and ions and replicate the original signals and thought pattern as observed in BCI and other psychic phenomena.

{Physicists, please post your comments.}

Mr. Trivedi has also published in journals from reputable publishers. One of my favorites is “A transcendental to changing metal powder characteristics” in Elsevier's Metal Powder Report. I found another in Wiley's Journal of General and Family Medicine. I have reprinted my Letter to the Editor and Publisher below, formatted for the blog.²

-- start of letter --

July 23, 2024

Dr. Okayama and the Editorial Staff of the Journal of General and Family Medicine,  

I am writing about the legitimacy of an article published in the journal:

Trivedi, M. K., Branton, A., Trivedi, D., Mondal, S., & Jana, S. (2023). The role of biofield energy treatment on psychological symptoms, mental health disorders, and stress‐related quality of life in adult subjects: A randomized controlled clinical trial. Journal of General and Family Medicine, 24(3), 154-163.

 

In this paper, the first author (Mahendra Kumar Trivedi, also known as “Guruji” on the Divine Connection website) makes extraordinary and unvalidated claims about his ability to change the state of matter – and the mental and physical health of human volunteers – via transmission of his thoughts (described as “blessing” throughout the manuscript). A peer-reviewed journal that accepts such declarations without incontrovertible scientific evidence, which was never provided, has compromised its scientific reputation. Furthermore, the study’s design is flawed and much of the data contained in the paper is implausible and inauthentic.

I am an established scientist who runs a research lab, and as I will outline below, it is ethically mandatory for the Journal of General and Family Medicine to reconsider this paper and for Wiley to retract it from the scientific literature for the following reasons.

1. The paper contends that the “randomized controlled clinical trial” (p. 154) used a placebo control condition when it did not. An experimental design that uses a no-treatment group does not control for expectation effects. Although the Abstract mentions that the placebo group was assigned to “naïve attunement” (p. 154), this procedure was not explained. It appears that the control group received no treatment or manipulation at all, and therefore cannot be considered “a placebo group” (see quote below). 
   
   

“Besides, the placebo control group subjects did not receive any blessing or attunements.”  (p. 156)




2.  The Psychological Questionnaires Scoring (PQS) used to assess mental health was “…prepared in-house with few modifications based on the standard scientific literatures, done by renowned experienced psychologists and psychiatrics, who were involved in this clinical trial study” (see p. 156). These individuals were not named, so we must assume they were authors. Although there are widely accepted standardized questionnaires that could have been used in the study, a more important concern was that the raw scores were not reported. Each symptom category consisted of only two questions, with a possible range of scores from 2 – 14. All measurements from the No-Treatment Group were on the first day of the study, Day 0 (baseline), with no follow-up. In contrast, measurements from the Biofield Energy Therapy Group were obtained on Day 90 (after treatment on Day 0) and on Day 180 (after a second treatment on Day 90). Significance for all 14 symptoms was p <0.0001, but the raw scores were not reported for either group. And we don’t know how scores for the No-Treatment Group might have changed over time. For example, Table 2 reports lower scores (a negative Mean ± SD) for the symptom “Stress and confusion” for the Treatment Group at 90 and 180 days, compared to the baseline No-Treatment Group (on Day 0).
90 days          −4.086 ± 0.7664

180 days         −6.114 ± 0.7230



3. Table 3 lists measurements for the functional biomarkers, which are the clearest evidence for unverifiable data (or error). Many of these are highly implausible, because their values are out-of-range of typical physiological levels (to an extent beyond what is seen in pathological conditions). It is unclear why these values were considered an improvement in overall health and quality of life (p. 154, 161). Concrete examples are given below.


                      No-Treatment       Treat, Day 90              Treat, Day 180

Oxytocin       88.05 ± 6.39    451.44 ± 32.93***    257.46 ± 27.62***
(pg/mL)

***p<0.001 vs. Controls
normal values, mean = 145.0 pg/mL, SD = 52.9 (Hoge et al., 2008).


17-β-estradiol  97080 ± 10140  134300 ± 17520   100250 ± 12120
(pg/mL)

Estradiol values were collapsed across male and female participants (both aged 20–45 years) and were converted from ng/mL {perhaps the units listed in Table 3 were wrong}

normal values
Male: 10 to 50 pg/mL
Female (premenopausal): 30 to 400 pg/mL

https://www.mountsinai.org/health-library/tests/estradiol-blood-test 

 

The reported levels of plasma catecholamines (below) are well beyond pathological levels, according to two separate sources.

                             No-Treatment      Treat, Day 90            Treat, Day 180


Norepinephrine     4540 ± 140      9240 ± 570***     8920 ± 570***
Dopamine             382.44 ± 6.5   1662 ± 102.3***   2000 ± 0.0***
(pg/mL)



A) normal values

Norepinephrine (pg/mL)
Seated (15 min):    177.5 to 811.2 pg/mL

Dopamine (pg/mL)
Seated (15 min):    > 36.7 pg/mL

NOTE: Small increases in catecholamines (less than 2 times the upper reference limit) are usually the result of physiological stimuli, drugs, or improper specimen collection. Significant elevation of one or more catecholamines (2 or more times the upper reference limit) can result from a neuroendocrine tumor.

https://ltd.aruplab.com/Tests/Pub/0080216


 

B) normal values

Norepinephrine    70 to 1700 pg/mL
Dopamine             0 to 30 pg/mL

Higher-than-normal levels of blood catecholamines may suggest:

Acute anxiety
Ganglioblastoma (very rare tumor)
Ganglioneuroma (very rare tumor)
Neuroblastoma (rare tumor)
Pheochromocytoma (rare tumor)
Severe stress

https://www.ucsfhealth.org/medical-tests/catecholamine-blood-test





In the final example, Klotho is an anti-aging biomarker, but the values are much below normal.

                       No-Treatment       Treat, Day 90            Treat, Day 180
Klotho            2.25 ± 0.04      11.09 ± 0.39***     17.67 ± 0.99***
pg/mL

normal values α-Klotho (pg/mL)

                                    Mean    SD     Ref Interval (5th–95th %ile)
Age 18–35 (n = 167)     932.6    575.6    392.6    2291.8


Espuch-Olivet et al., 2022.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9101232/




4. The paper presents supernatural phenomena as real (p. 155, emphasis is mine): 

“The Trivedi Effect® is a unique and scientifically proven phenomenon in which a healer can harness the inherent intelligent energy from the universal energy field and transmit it anywhere on the planet through neutrinos (biophotons).6 A renowned religious spiritual healer using biofield energy to transform the characteristics and behavior of living beings and nonliving materials through unique (thought intention) biofield energy transmission process by his physical presence and long-distance (distant healing) to heal the physical body and mind and bring emotional and spiritual balance.7” 
• The Trivedi Effect® has not been scientifically proven. Citation #6 provided no data to support this.
• There is no justification given for neutrinos to be equated with biophotons.
• It is possible that “ultraweak photon emissions” can be imaged from the human body, according to Kobayashi et al. (2009), but no evidence for this was provided in the current paper. 
  


5. On its website, Wiley endorses the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines and provides links to the Core Practices for journals and publishers:

https://www.wiley.com/en-us/network/publishing/research-publishing/editors/committee-on-publication-ethics-cope-101

 

As I have demonstrated, the claims in Trivedi et al. (2023) are beyond the realm of empirical science, and a reputable medical journal should not publish them. Wiley, as a supporter of COPE, should subscribe to ethical standards in peer review and follow the official guidelines for considering whether a retraction is appropriate. 

Sincerely,

[my real name]

 

Links and References

ARUP Laboratories. Catecholamines Fractionated, Plasma. https://ltd.aruplab.com/Tests/Pub/0080216 [retrieved on 07/22/2024]

COPE. Retraction guidelines. https://publicationethics.org/retraction-guidelines [retrieved on 07/23/2024]

Divine Connection. Guruji Mahendra Kumar Trivedi is an Enlightened and miraculous being with Divine Embodiment, gifted to transform living organisms at the genetic level & non-living materials at the atomic level. https://divineconnection.org/about-guruji-trivedi [retrieved on 07/22/2024]

Espuch-Oliver, A., Vázquez-Lorente, H., Jurado-Fasoli, L., de Haro-Muñoz, T., Díaz-Alberola, I., López-Velez, M. D. S., ... & Amaro-Gahete, F. J. (2022). References values of soluble α-klotho serum levels using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in healthy adults aged 18–85 years. Journal of clinical medicine, 11(9), 2415. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9101232/

Hoge, E. A., Pollack, M. H., Kaufman, R. E., Zak, P. J., & Simon, N. M. (2008). Oxytocin levels in social anxiety disorder. CNS neuroscience & therapeutics, 14(3), 165-170. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1755-5949.2008.00051.x

Kobayashi, M., Kikuchi, D., & Okamura, H. (2009). Imaging of ultraweak spontaneous photon emission from human body displaying diurnal rhythm. PLoS one, 4(7), e6256. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0006256

Mount Sinai. Estradiol blood test. https://www.mountsinai.org/health-library/tests/estradiol-blood-test [retrieved on 07/22/2024]

UCSF Health. Catecholamine blood test. https://www.ucsfhealth.org/medical-tests/catecholamine-blood-test [retrieved on 07/22/2024]

THE WILEY NETWORK. Committee On Publication Ethics (COPE) 101 For Editors. https://www.wiley.com/en-us/network/publishing/research-publishing/editors/committee-on-publication-ethics-cope-101

-- end of letter --

 

Footnotes

¹ The h-index is a metric that considers an author's productivity and the citation impact of their publications. [ADDENDUM July 30 2024: according to Wikipedia. Others say it's easily manipulated (see first comment).]

² The tables are not pretty.