The following appeared in the summary of a study on headaches suffered by the residents of Mentia."Salicylates are members of the same chemical family as aspirin, a medicine used to treat headaches. Although many foods are naturally rich in salicylates, f

The writer anticipated a continuous decline in number of suffered headache in Mentenia due to newly discovered usage of this material as a food flavor. The chemical similarities between aspirin and salicylates and result of a 20-years study showing a correlation between increasing commercial use of salicylates in food as a preservative and decrease of number of suffered headaches reported by participants in the study, were the reasons for his assertion. Generally, his argument is not cogent and didn’t convince me to accept his claim. To agree with writer, I need some evidence like the concentration of salicylate to be effective and in the foods and 20-years study’s conditions like number of participants and their circumstances.

First of all, often there is a minimum concentration for all medicines to effect. Writer should mention about the minimum dose of salicylate to cure headache and should compare it with the amount of it in foods as preservative and flavor additive. Maybe the amount of this composition in foods is not enough to effect on headache so, this won’t be a good reason for declining the number of headaches and will weaken writer’s argument. But if the dose of salicylate in foods is more than effective amount, mentioning this will bolster writer’s assertion of decreasing headaches due to salicylate’s use as food additive.

Furthermore, there is no evidence about the study’s circumstances and participants. The participants in study should be representative of all people. It should include all type of people in gender, age and health condition. And he didn’t mention that if study carried on a certain participant or in each year they choose new ones. For example if the participants remain unchanged during 20years and most of them were from employers at first, after 20 years they may become retired and since their headache was because of fatigue and mental pressures in their job, so declining of the headaches number won’t be due to use of salicylate in foods but because of changing of conditions. Moreover, the eating habits in participants of the study should have been surveyed. Even though the addition of salicylate has been increased there is no evidence about usage of these foods among people. Maybe people prefer to eat fresh foods that themselves made it so the use of this composition in food processing has no effect on people’s health.

Finally, there are several reasons for a headache and various medications for each kind of headache. For example the cure for a headache due to cold or fatigue is different from a headache generated from a brain tumor. The important question that will help the writer to boost his anticipate is that if the salicylate is effective for all kind of headache or for some of them. If it is effective for all kind, mentioning this will bolster the writer’s anticipate, else, he should mention about various headaches that had cured with this drug.

To summarize, writer asserted his forecast based on some assumptions that should have been mentioned. I think to bolster his argument, he should add sum evidence about the survey’s conditions and people who attended in it. Also, knowing about dose of effective salicylate as medicine and as preservator or flavor additive in foods and kind of cured headaches by salicylate will help people to accept his claim.