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Dear Dr. Geng,
Thank you for submitting the revised version of your manuscript. I reviewed the revision and verified that all the reviewers' comments have been adequately addressed. I am pleased to inform you that your manuscript is now ready for publication in PeerJ in its present form.
I thank all the reviewers for their efforts in improving the manuscript and the authors' cooperation throughout the review process.
Sincerely,
Stefano Menini
Dear Dr. Geng,
Thank you for your resubmission. I have now received the report from the reviewers who suggested minor modifications. I urge you to pay careful attention to these points and invite you to address the reviewers' comments and recommendations.
I hope you will be prepared to make the necessary amendments and submit a revised manuscript with a statement of how you have responded to the criticisms raised. Please copy and paste each and every reviewer's comment above your response. You are also kindly requested to provide a complete tracked changes version of the manuscript to make verifying that the required changes have been made easier.
If you are willing to do this, I would not need to return the manuscript to the reviewers, but it could then be accepted for publication.
I look forward to receiving your revision,
Sincerely yours,
Stefano Menini
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For the dataset problem, it seems the authors got the curated data from Tang's study and reanalyzed it. If it is true, please describe it in the method section and cite Tang's paper. if the authors independently get the data from the TWB and clean up the dataset by themselves, please write it in the method section to avoid unnecessary doubt.
For raw data, I understand the author's explanation. Please write the explanation somewhere or revise the dataset so that all reader can understand.
Clear
ok
- Postmenopausal women aged 50 and older, non-smokers, non-drinkers, coffee drinkers, and married individuals demonstrated a significantly reduced risk of KSD among tea drinkers compared to non-tea drinkers. How many women? a significant reduced risk, P=??
- table 7gives global comparison according to several parameters, a table of postmenopausal tea drinking and no tea drinking with the same characteristics.
The authors have provided a nicely detailed and thorough response to the comments from the previous review and have addressed my major concerns. However, one comment needs additional details. I recommend following revision :
according to reported results , for the parameters smoker alcohol and physical activity, the two groups tea drinking and tea no drinking are different (p<0.001). so we can relate the lower prevalence of kidney stone to tea drinking. I suggest choosing two groups with similar characteristics even small number of patients.
Dear Dr. Geng,
Your manuscript entitled “Habitual tea consumption is associated with a lower prevalence of kidney stone disease in postmenopausal women," which you submitted to PeerJ, has been reviewed by the editor and 2 external reviewers.
I regret to inform you that the reviewers have raised significant concerns that must be addressed before the manuscript can be considered further. In particular, the relationship between this study and the previous one (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36494042/), as reported by Reviewer 1, must be clarified, particularly regarding the authorizations and informed consent. However, since reviewers find some merit in the paper, I would be willing to reconsider if you wish to undertake major revisions and resubmit.
If you decide to resubmit the revised version, please summarize all the improvements made in the new version and give answers to all critical points raised in the reviewers’ report in an accompanying letter. Copy and paste each and every reviewer's comment above your response.
Please note that resubmitting your manuscript does not guarantee eventual acceptance. Since the requested changes are major, the revised manuscript will undergo a second round of review by the same reviewers. I must emphasize that the acceptability of the revision will depend upon the resolution of the points raised by the reviewers.
Sincerely yours,
Stefano Menini
The presentation is clear and concise.
It seems the author used part of the data from their previous study because the number of postmenopausal women is identical. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36494042/). If so, I recommend that the author clearly state the rationale for using these data to avoid the concern of "salami" publication.
Their research question is whether habitual tea consumption is associated with the prevalence of kidney stone disease in postmenopausal women. They used a large questionnaire-based cross-sectional cohort to show the relationship. The methods were well-described and the study design is rigorous.
They showed that daily tea intake, especially drinking more than 2 cups of tea was associated with less prevalence of kidney stones. The finding is consistent if they performed multivariate analysis with potential confounders. The results were sound and well-controlled.
Because the effect of tea consumption seems not associated with menopause, I wonder why the authors limit the target to postmenopausal women. Theoretically, is it also effective for men or premenopausal women?
Assessment of the causal relationship between menopause, tea consumption, and kidney stones is complicated because it is unclear when they experienced menopause, started drinking tea, and experienced kidney stones. Because the author asked when the participants were diagnosed with kidney stones, it would be nice to perform a sensitivity analysis for kidney stones "after" menopause.
Interpretation of the comparison between fermented and non-fermented tea needs to be commented on. because only 16 events were observed in the fermented tea group, it is natural not to reach statistical significance in this group. I think it is more straightforward to say there is no clear difference between these teas because the odds ratio is consistent.
The author provided raw data, but it seems the data have significant problems.
- the data contain 27120 samples. It doesn't match the participants of this study.
- Only 11531 samples have menopause information, less than the entire participants (11576) reported in this study.
-There are many redundant columns such as KIDNEY_STONE_SELF.x, KIDNEY_STONE_SELF.y, without explanation.
- A paragraph about nutrition and kidney stone is required, with adequate recent references.
- The hypothesis is neutral. Authors should present a clear hypothesis about microwaves and brain functions (learning and memory) in patients.
- Please rewrite the last paragraph by indicating the question research and state clearly the objectives of this study.
- Authors should indicate the method of sampling.
- Inclusion and exclusion criteria are important for reproducing the study
- according to tables 1 and 2 , for the parameters smoker alcohol and physical activity, the two groups tea drinking and tea no drinking are different (p<0.001). so we can relate the lower prevalence of kidney stone to tea drinking. I suggest choosing two groups with similar characteristics even small number of patients.
according to tables 1 and 2 , for the parameters smoker alcohol and physical activity, the two groups tea drinking and tea no driking are different (p<0.001). so we can relate the lower prevalence of kidney stone to tea driking. I suggest choosing two groups with similar characteristics even small number of patients.
The conclusion is poor. Authors should revise the conclusion by focusing in the main raised points and the future specific directions.
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