Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) can be useful for all sorts of illnesses with a mental component, so much so that in most places demand far outstrips supply. A team of Dutch researchers decided to try teaching some willing general practitioners the basic methods of CBT, and then to see if they achieved better outcomes in patients who were losing time off work with unexplained fatigue (controlled trial, 151 employees randomised). Alas, this made no difference, either because GPs aren’t very good at delivering CBT or because CBT isn’t very good at reducing absenteeism from chronic fatigue.

Blood pressure (BP) is one of the most frequently measured human variables, but despite a century of study and at least 5 journals devoted entirely to it, we still don’t know the answers to many basic questions. For instance, there is a growing move towards home measurements by patients, but do they have any predictive advantage over office measurements, which tend to be higher because of the “white coat effect”? The first of 2 recent cohort studies in

looked at a fairly typical mixed cohort and measured BP control, wellbeing, and left ventricular mass (LVM)—things that could be called “soft endpoints.” …