Eating 7+ portions of fruits and veggies a day reduces your risk of death by 42%
sciencedaily.com
sciencedaily.com
PDF: http://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2014/03/03/jech-2013-20350...
"Other variables included in the analysis were age (35–44 years, 45–54 years, 55–64 years, 65–74 years and 75+ years), sex, smoking status (current smoker, ex-regular smoker, never smoked regularly) and social class of the head of household (manual, non-manual, other). Education (degree or equivalent qualification, other, no qualification), measured body mass index (BMI) (<20 kg/m2, 20–24.9 kg/m2, 25–29.9 kg/m2, ≥30 kg/m2), physical activity (as maximum activity intensity level in the past 4 weeks: inactive, light activity, moderate activity, vigorous activity) and alcohol consumption on heaviest drinking day in the previous week (non-drinker, drank within limits, drank above limits, drank more than twice the recommended daily limit) were also added to the models as indicated."
The most obvious thing missing from this list to me is all other dietary related variables. For example, people who like the taste of plants are probably far less likely to enjoy eating red meat, salty foods, and many other things that have been associated with increased mortality.
Which, incidentally, have really only been associated with increased mortality through flawed epidemiological studies such as this one.
Social class is manual/non-manual? What do retail and telemarketing count as?
edit: I'm being a bit pithy here, but what I want to know is if someone who went to DeVry and works in telemarketing ends up higher class than me, a six-figure college dropout with six-figure college (Northwestern/Northern Illinois) graduate parents.
Social class is almost fully determined by the wealth of people's parents, why don't we use it?
So I think there is value in these studies. As well, food diaries are a standard measure of diet. Not ideal, but accepted standard.
These observational studies are mostly worthless because they are not controlling for the right things.
If you read the actual journal article referenced [1], a number of other factors were included in the analysis, and the stated effects were after controlling for those factors (which included smoking, age, and social class, among other factors.)
So, no, your dismissal doesn't work.
[1] http://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2014/03/03/jech-2013-20350...
Pretty sure I still have a 100% risk of dying no matter what.
The problem with the data is that people who eat "healthy" probably care more about their health. Even if the food has a negative effect, they could have other tendencies (exercise) that outweigh any negatives.
Plus they probably eat more carefully, in general, drink less, etc. So... correlation != causation yada yada
A better study would be to take unhealthy people and now introduce the fruits and veg and see what happens.
There is much more to health than the amount of vegetables you eat, including genetics, and it is imposssible to properly test them in isolation.
I do look forward to a proper statistical analysis of these results rather than this tabloid nonsense. It will be interesting to see if there is actually any measurable impact above (say) just some fruit or vegetable intake per day.
It's a percent of a percent.
So if you have a 0.004% chance of dying on any given day, and you increase this by 100%, then you have a 0.008% chance of dying. Not a 100.004% chance.
[1] http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/5ADAY/Pages/Portionsizes.aspx
http://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2014/03/03/jech-2013-20350...
Steve Jobs was also scared of surgery which caused him to die of a curable affliction.
Stupidity kills, you might need to be careful.
Your chance of dying eventually of some cause is unaffected, and remains at 1.00.
The article even explicitly says "at any point in time" in the very first graf. The fact that the entire article isn't packed into the headline is also not all that revelatory.
The title and the abstract are poorly written and the GP is deriding it which his perfectly appropriate.
Not only that, after reading it, it appears that the science is bollocks too.
And to mention body mass in it instantly shoots all credibility.
Without criticizing it for not including more information (which, again, is not the point), what is poorly written about the title? I wouldn't say it's a work of art, but it seems serviceable to me. It's not deceptive, offensive or so vague you don't know what to expect.
> Not only that, after reading it, it appears that the science is bollocks too.
There are certainly valid and substantial criticisms you could make along those lines. That is one of the many reasons I feel like deliberately misinterpreting the title and criticizing that incorrect interpretation is a poor use of time and space.
I think you believe I'm supporting the article as a piece of great science. I'm not. I'm saying that nit-picking titles does not constitute meaningful criticism and doesn't increase our collective understanding of the article one iota. I feel like every science article includes some "Well, actually…" comment about the title that doesn't actually make anything more clear. I'd rather see more people tearing articles apart and fewer sarcastic comments about titles.