Sugar and Arthritis

An arthritis diet claims that the disease can be relieved by reducing sugar from the diet. To test this claim, a researcher randomly assigns arthritis patients to two groups.

Both groups eat the same amount of calories, but one group eats almost no sugar and the other group includes sugar in their meal.

After 3 months, the doctor tests the claim that the sugar-free diet is better than the usual diet.

She records the proportion of each group that got relieved of almost 10% of their problem. She then announced that she failed to reject the null hypothesis.

Which of the following are valid interpretations of her findings?

a. The sugar-free diet was less effective than the normal diet.

b. The researcher did not see enough evidence to conclude that the sugarfree diet was more effective.

c. The sugar-free diet and the normal diet were equally effective.

d. There were no significant differences in effectiveness between the sugar-free diet and normal diet.