Fox news article on meat/arthritis issue

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 12/11/04 6:32:52 AM, sbwertz@... writes:

First, the data were not collected for the purpose of determining the causes of the diagnosed arthritis among study subjects. The data is from a cancer study involving 25,630 people — so these results very likely could be a statistical artifact or oddity that the researchers published just to get some attention.

I don't eat any red meat, (haven't for 30 years), and have RA very bad (for what it is worth).

Pris

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[Guest guest]

This was in today's Fox News

There are several reasons for not taking these results too seriously.

First, the data were not collected for the purpose of determining the causes of

the diagnosed arthritis among study subjects. The data is from a cancer study

involving 25,630 people — so these results very likely could be a statistical

artifact or oddity that the researchers published just to get some attention.

From a statistical perspective, the reported results are weak correlations that

conflict with other results (unpublicized!) from the same study — for example,

arthritis patients were not more likely than controls to have eaten red meat. If

the researchers' claims were true, then why would total meat intake, but not red

meat intake alone, be associated with increased risk of arthritis?

This brings us to the last point — that the researchers really have no idea of

how meat intake could increase the risk of arthritis, acknowledging, " There is

no evidence as to what [about meat] might be important in relation to

arthritis. "

Sharon