The Most Important Study of the Mediterranean Diet Has Been Retracted (qz.com) 115
Zorro shares a report from Quartz: In 2013, the New England Journal of Medicine published a landmark study that found that people put on a Mediterranean diet had a 30% lower chance of heart attack, stroke, or death from cardiovascular disease than people on a low-fat diet. It received massive media and public attention when released, and since has been cited by 3,268 other scientific papers. The study had tremendous impact on the field of nutrition and health science. Yesterday (June 13), however, the journal retracted the study -- providing a new reason for skepticism about how effective the now-popular Mediterranean diet really is.
The reasons for the withdrawal are complicated, having to do with the methodology of the study. As Alison McCook of the Retraction Watch blog writes for NPR, this retraction is the result of the work of John Carlisle, a British anesthesiologist and self-taught statistician. Carlisle has spent recent years analyzing over 5,000 published randomized controlled trials (the gold standard of medical science research) to see how likely they were to have actually been properly randomized. In 2017, he reported his results: at least 2% of the studies were problematic. One was the 2013 NEJM article on the Mediterranean diet.
The reasons for the withdrawal are complicated, having to do with the methodology of the study. As Alison McCook of the Retraction Watch blog writes for NPR, this retraction is the result of the work of John Carlisle, a British anesthesiologist and self-taught statistician. Carlisle has spent recent years analyzing over 5,000 published randomized controlled trials (the gold standard of medical science research) to see how likely they were to have actually been properly randomized. In 2017, he reported his results: at least 2% of the studies were problematic. One was the 2013 NEJM article on the Mediterranean diet.
Anything you eat will kill you (Score:1)
Eat what you want in moderation. Just live your life and try to be happy.
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Re:Anything you eat will kill you (Score:5, Funny)
We humans aren't much different, with the exception of it taking a munch longer timeline.
I saw what you did there,
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Re:Anything you eat will kill you (Score:5, Informative)
There are many animals in this world in that if you give them an unlimited supply of food, they will keep on eating until they die; often in very short order.
I grew up on a dairy farm and I'd see this happen. I personally didn't see a cow eat itself to death but I have seen cows eat until they got sick and had heard stories of people having to dispose of cows that had eaten until they died. This seems to only be true of corn feed though, a cow will know enough to stop eating grass/alfalfa/haylage eventually. I do remember a calf that didn't know enough to not eat the straw. That calf got bloated and sick constantly until it learned that straw is not good food.
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There are many animals in this world in that if you give them an unlimited supply of food, they will keep on eating until they die; often in very short order. We humans aren't much different,
Especially American humans.
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Thanks for the worthless advice. Eat some cyanide in moderation while I follow the traditional Okinawan way of eating.
Re: Anything you eat will kill you (Score:1)
I eat some almonds every day, thank you.
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The diet industry doesn’t want that.
We have been conditioned to believe in a noble life style of self sacrifice. So if we are not meeting culture definition of beauty then we tie it with health issues. We shame ourselves and others for not trying hard enough.
The concept of proper diets are easy. East foods with nutrients your body needs and calories in should equal calories out (to maintain weight)
However the problem is bodies handle nutrients and calories differently. That salad and vegan diet may
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Whew! Dodged a bullet (Score:2)
/ still fat
Re:Whew! Dodged a bullet (Score:4, Insightful)
MSM at its finest (Score:4, Informative)
First, some background:
Statistical methods are based on what are known as "stable distributions". A stable distribution is one where a subset of examples, selected randomly, will have the same characteristics as the full set. Normally this refers to a bell curve, so if you have a bell curve population and you select a sample at random, then the sample mean will tend towards the population mean and the sample width will tend towards the population width.
It is this characteristic that lets us extend measurements of characteristics from a subset to the characteristics of the whole population.
(There are a couple of other distributions that are stable [wikipedia.org], but they are fairly rare in the real world. IIRC, Nile river flooding follows a Levy distribution [wikipedia.org], and was the first instance of a stable distribution that wasn't a bell curve.)
This only works if the subset selection is random. If the selection isn't random, then the results can be skewed towards randomness (you won't see an effect that's there, the most likely outcome) or phantom effects that aren't really there.
That is the defect in the Mediterranean diet study, that the participants were not placed on one diet (or the other) at random. In particular, husband and wife participants were both placed on the same diet, and in one case an entire town of participants were placed on the same diet.
Of note: When the flawed placements are deleted from the data, the Mediterranean diet still stands and there is still a clear effect [npr.org] indicated by the data.
"This affected only a small part of the trial," says Martínez González. When the researchers reanalyzed the data excluding the nonrandomized people, the results were the same, he adds.
So the conclusions of the study are still strong: the diet correlates well and strongly with reduced heart attacks.
Out of an abundance of caution and professional ethics, the study was adjusted with softer language in the conclusions.
And yet, our noble MSM is reporting only that the study was retracted, comparing it to 50-ish other studies that were similarly flawed.
With predictable results, such as the post this is in reply to.
(Exercise for the reader: Is the MSM doing more harm than good here, or is it the other way around? Many, many other articles report the news with an opinion, such as "Trump meets with Kim, but it won't result in anything useful". Why couldn't NPR have a similar headline for *this* article, such as "Diet study retracted, despite being accurate"?)
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But in another sense, the paper was entirely wrong: the Mediterranean diet does not cause better health outcomes.
I haven’t read the second link, so I’d be happy to be proven wrong, but I seriously doubt the investigation found that the paper instead proves the null hypothesis. It’s extremely annoying that even purported “science” writers can’t be precise with language.
Prediction: This article will be quoted, without a direct link to the original paper or investogation, asserting that “The Mediterranean diet [b]does not[/b] cause better health outcomes,” instead of
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"Trump meets with Kim, but it won't result in anything useful"
Not only did NPR not run this headline, I can't find any other "MSM" that did. Do you have a source?
Also, is Fox News MSM?
Re:MSM at its finest (Score:5, Informative)
And yet, our noble MSM is reporting only that the study was retracted, comparing it to 50-ish other studies that were similarly flawed.
Did you read the links? The NPR link says basically what you're saying here: the diet still has good evidence behind it, but they softened the language in the conclusion as a result of this. The Quartz article is more one-sided, but... are you really calling Quartz "MSM"?
Let's see... Here's [nytimes.com] the New York Times coverage. I'll quote:
That Huge Mediterranean Diet Study Was Flawed. But Was It Wrong?
A highly publicized trial in Spain found that the Mediterranean diet protects against heart disease. Now the original work has been retracted and re-analyzed, with the same result.
The next link from my search is USA Today [usatoday.com], I'll quote:
He stressed this flaw only affected a small part of the trial (about 10 percent of participants) and that the conclusions remain the same: A Mediterranean diet can decrease risk of heart attacks and strokes by about 30 percent among those who are at high risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
So the answer to your exercise appears to be: Yes, the MSM are responsible journalists and the random news blog is not.
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Your final point about the importance of random sampling is a good one, but on the way I'm afraid there are a number of misconceptions about how and why statistics works:
Statistical methods are based on what are known as "stable distributions".
No, statistical methods are based on whatever probability distribution is appropriate - they are not limited to stable distributions
A stable distribution is one where a subset of examples, selected randomly, will have the same characteristics as the full set.
Not quite: a stable distribution is one where the *sum* of a sample of independent random variables has the same distribution.
so if you have a bell curve population and you select a sample at random, then the sample mean will tend towards the population mean and the sample width will tend towards the population width.
The sample mean will always approach the population mean (in the limit of large samp
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Would you like to comment on my smoking?
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Some people poop out half the calories they eat. Some do not.
Then there's those who clinch their anal sphincter so tightly the shit comes out of their mouths.
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But none poop out double.
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Would you like to comment on my smoking?
When they get done with that, they can comment on me using bacon grease to cook with my eggs. MMmmmm...tasty bacon.
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Or use that for the mornings hash browns, unless you share my opinion that white bread can be too white every other morning.
I don't really cook hash browns in the morning, but I do cook fried potateo's, with a mix of rosemary, dash of salt and pepper. They're quite tasty, have a very nice fluffy taste, almost melt in your mouth with a crisp outside. Give it a try sometime.
Sleeper (Score:5, Funny)
So what. (Score:1)
-
* - Standard American Diet.
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Regardless, most Democrats think they're overweight because of genetics, while Republicans tend to think it's because of personal behavior. Gee, what a surprise.
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappbl... [lse.ac.uk]
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Regardless, most Democrats think they're overweight because of genetics, while Republicans tend to think it's because of personal behavior. Gee, what a surprise.
I must be a moderate because I think personal behavior is genetic.
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Please learn what "copy-pasta" actually refers to, then get back to us.
Nothingburger (Score:4, Informative)
The summary is misleading because it omits mention that the randomization errors were inconsequential. The study conclusion remains the same when the improperly randomized subjects are excluded.
from the linked article:
It turns out approximately 14 percent of the more than 7,400 study participants hadn't been assigned randomly to either the Mediterranean diet or a low-fat one. When couples joined the study together, both had been picked to follow the same diet. At one of the 11 participating study sites, the lead investigator had assigned the same diet to an entire village and didn't tell the rest of the investigators.
"This affected only a small part of the trial," says Martínez González. When the researchers reanalyzed the data excluding the nonrandomized people, the results were the same, he adds.
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Basically, it turned the study's conclusion from "we're sur
Re:That's not what the article says (Score:5, Interesting)
And if you follow the link to the 2017 study, what becomes clear is that the poor and rich people were eating different versions of the "Mediterranean Diet". They all ate mainly foods from the list, but the proportions and variety varied between groups.
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Let me check though... otherwise the people tested were all identical clones living in a bubble right? Please tell me there were no other variables beyond Mediterranean and low-fat. Or wealth.
People didn't cheat at all on the diets did they?
Some of the people weren't secretly women?
None of the men at risk of heart disease died from getting lap dances from strippers?
I did read some nutritional research once which I
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@raymoris: The quote is accurate, just not from the source article you quoted, but from the second/last one in the post from NPR which is the original source: https://www.npr.org/sections/h... [npr.org]
The Slashdot story has 2 separate articles that covers the topic. One from Quarts and the other from NPR which was one of the sources used for the Quarts article.
The Quarts article quotes the NPR article, but it failed to include what @Nothingburger mentioned which I agree, makes for a misleading summary and should ha
I was afraid of that. I was wrong. Sorry Jodka (Score:4)
After I wrote my post, I went off to do some other things and it occurred to me there was more than one link in the summary. I figured I'd better check to see if the other link did in fact say that, because if so - well then I'm an asshole.
Indeed, I was wrong.
Thanks for being so gracious in the manner in which you pointed that out.
I'm sorry, Jodka. I was both wrong AND rude.
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That is an extremely gracious response!
Looks like an honest error, I apologize for calling you a troll.
I clicked on that dot by your handle and marked you as a friend.
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I'm suddenly feeling a bit disoriented... Did somebody just raise the level of discourse in here?
(Thanks, Ray.)
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Attention: Moderators (Score:5, Insightful)
Please moderate the Parent GP posts correctly by verifying the truth of those posts before you moderate up or down.
It is easy:
1. Go to the slashdot summary. There are three links in that article. Verify that the third link is to this article [npr.org].
2. Scroll down in that article to, about the 17th paragraph, which begins "It turns out approximately 14 percent of the more than 7,400 study participants hadn't "
3. Compare that paragraph and next to the quoted paragraphs in the GP post to confirm that they match, confirming that the GP truthfully quotes an article linked in the /. summary.
4. Read the sentence in the parent post which states "Please kindly refrain from making up random bullshit and pretending you are quoting the article". Because in the previous step you have verified that the GP accurately quotes a linked article, yet the Parent emphatically and profanely states the opposite, conclude that the author of the parent post is a troll.
5. Moderate the parent post accordingly. It belongs at -1, Troll, down with the goatse posts.
6. Moderate the GP at least back up to what it default to when originally posted at, +2. Unless, using our own judgment, you can find a compelling reason otherwise to object to its content.
7. Consider moderating this post up as you see fit. In the humble opinion of its author, it makes a helpful point: with little effort moderators can improve /. by assessing the truth or falsity of posts before assigning mod points.
My apologies, kind sir (Score:2, Insightful)
You are of course correct, the summary links multiple articles. I apologize. I was both wrong and rude.
Normally I have mod points but today I don't, so I can't mod myself down. :)
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Ray made an error and owned up to it.
He can't go back and change what he'd already posted—can you? No? Then I invite you to KGFY.
KTHXBAI.
Maybe but the second link indeed does say that (Score:1)
now whether you trust "QZ.com" is another story but they properly link to the original article : https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/n... [harvard.edu] and https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/n... [harvard.edu]
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You are not my moderation line manager!
CNN: Breaking News! (Score:2, Insightful)
And in other news, eggs are bad for you. Oh, I've just been given a note. Eggs are now good for you. Oh, another note. Make that bad. What? Now they're good again? Are we all eating the same eggs here? What do you MEAN they're bad again? I can't even finish a sentence without you
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In other news, (Score:1, Troll)
In other news, eggs are once again poison, red wine is still good, but chocolate is bad, going into it's 11th year keto is still a dangerous fad, 5 few types of fats and 3 new types of cholesterol were discovered, and each of them is worse than the last.
Stay tuned for our follow up broadcast at 11, where up to 3 of those dietary facts will be reversed.
Well Done (Score:2)
This is how science is supposed to work...and why religion doesn't.
Ob (Score:2, Funny)
Well wop can you say? There's hardly a dagoes by without some study saying something's bad for you. I take a small spic of comfort from the fact that if you average the studies out they come down to variation plus moderation.
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... ima fittin ta go git me some eggs, a shitload of bacon, sausage, some hashed browned taters, and cheesy grits, plus biscuits and gravy ...!
I think I'm going to cry. God, I miss real food sometimes.
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Give him a nobel (Score:2)
People like this are the super-heroes of science, doing tons of work to find the bad science and weed it out.
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Of course, the fact that we are and have been omnivores for millions of years has no bearing on this.
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Oh, I'm sure I've other fans in addition to our correspondent in Syracuse—including at least one, it seems, who can actually form a complete sentence. Impressive.
Needs to work on his punctuation, though.
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Wouldn't a species living as omnivores for millions of years eventually experience evolutionary changes such as instincts to hunt as well as gather. Or possibly experience digestion system changes to handle consumption and processing of a
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"Our omnivorous side"? Yep, dealing with an idiot here.
BTW, Milton Mills is a fundie/"Creation Science" nutter [andersaaberg.dk].
Re: Vegan (Score:1)
Says you. What studies prove that?
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The Mediterranean diet is flawed because it incorporates a lot of seafood.
It isn't flawed if your genome is accustomed to seafood. For example, Asians eat a great deal of seafood, and their life expectancies are above the world average. (Setting aside possible tragic societal factors such as higher suicide rate.)
The healthiest diet is a plant-based diet.
That's debatable. Getting all the nutrients you need from a vegan diet is possible, but tricky. And as Zontar the Mindless mentions on this thread, we are omnivores. Look at the teeth in our mouths and our digestive tracts. We evolved to eat food from a variety of sources
Re:Vegan (Score:5, Interesting)
It isn't flawed if your genome is accustomed to seafood.
Europeans ate plenty of seafood for a very long time throughout history. This was put on hold for about 1000 years when the Moors invaded and tended to kill or enslave those fishing in the Mediterranean Sea.
I'm sure many would think that on an evolutionary scale this 1000 years is not likely to affect the genetic makeup of Europeans. Access to protein is important for one's health and losing access to fishing will mean needing to seek it elsewhere. This means hunting for furry and feathered creatures, and/or domesticating goats, sheep, and cattle while often consuming their milk.
Lactose tolerance in adults is for the most part highly centered on Europe. Those that couldn't fish would need protein from milk. If they couldn't tolerate drinking milk for protein then they might kill their cow to eat the meat, but then they risk running out of protein pretty quick.
There was a trade of salted fish from northern waters but that meant a potential for rotten fish, high salt intake, and so on for moving fish so far in a time where things moved at the speed of a laden ox. Oh, and since I know someone is going to ask... I'm talking about European laden oxen, not African.
BTW, Africans did have domesticated cattle but they didn't always drink the milk. To get protein from the cattle and not kill it they'd draw blood and drink that, perhaps mixed with the milk.
Getting all the nutrients you need from a vegan diet is possible, but tricky. And as Zontar the Mindless mentions on this thread, we are omnivores. Look at the teeth in our mouths and our digestive tracts. We evolved to eat food from a variety of sources. And we are predators, built for the hunt, with eyes in the front of our heads, the better to spot prey with stereo vision.
We have evolved to eat cooked food as well. This is unique to humans. Comparisons of the human digestive system to other omnivores expose this difference.
What is a bit amazing to me is that there is a difference between what men and women have evolved to eat. Meat is a dangerous food. Not only does meat fight back until it's dead but even then it can kill you from being under cooked, or as mentioned above over salted. A man getting sick from meat means he's miserable for a while, assuming it doesn't kill him. A woman getting sick runs the risk of a miscarriage if pregnant, including same the risk of death as men. Miscarriages from eating meat over long evolutionary time spans will lead to differences in the genetics. This is why pregnant women are discouraged from eating certain foods and often feel ill when eating things they would otherwise tolerate when not pregnant. Women can better tolerate a vegetarian diet than men. That's not saying it's impossible for men to go on a vegan diet, only that men run greater health risks for doing so.
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It was Moops, not Moors
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>"The healthiest diet is a plant-based diet."
This is doubtful. It appears the healthiest diet consists of grilled meat, plus a variety vegetables. Vegetable oil from the fleshy part of the plant (olive oil, avocado oil, palmfruit oil, coconut oil) is healthy, while vegetable oil from seeds (palm kernel oil, corn oil, soybean oil, sunflower oil, etc.) is unhealthy. Excessive heat can turn healthy fats into unhealthy trans fats, so avoid frying.
Cholesterol is a vital nutrient. You don't get high blood chol
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As with this study, it's utter rubbish. We're studying a machine with countless variables over extended periods of time. We're experimenting purely with the fuel provided by the observed audience. We then measure statistics as if the only variable different between these massively complex organisms is Mediterranean vs. a low fat diet. We monitor superficial data to identify whether it's effective.
Even if this was a reasonable m
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TLDRBIPIOAWMAWI (Too Long Didn't Read But I Printed It Out And Wiped My Ass With It).
Re:Vegan (Score:4, Insightful)
> The healthiest diet is a plant-based diet.
Humans SUCK at digesting plants. We don't have the enzymes for it. We don't have the stomachs for it.
The vast bulk of the plants we grow for our own use are completely inedible to us.
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ITYM inedible to us without some form of processing, like grinding, soaking, boiling....
Otherwise it'd make more sense to grow something else, wouldn't it?
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ITYM inedible to us without some form of processing, like grinding, soaking, boiling....
Or letting another animal eat it, and then eating that animal...
It's only a form of processing plant matter.