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The Most Important Study of the Mediterranean Diet Has Been Retracted (qz.com)
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.
Eat what you want in moderation. Just live your life and try to be happy.
Realized the sources to the diet were few and not 100% credible, ignored it, grabbed the recipes that sounded tasty, and continued living my life.
// I'm a good cook, I eat a lot
/// See also: Dom Delouise
/ still fat
/ still fat
Pleonasm if you're an American.
You're a moron, you deserve the clogged arteries that will kill you soon, study or no study, literate or not as you choose to be.
The Mediterranean diet is flawed because it incorporates a lot of seafood.
The healthiest diet is a plant-based diet.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
-
* - Standard American Diet.
I want to try it.
It has always been my firm belief that the key to a successful Mediterranean diet is consuming copious quantities of wine. Everything else becomes irrelevant once you've mastered that part of it.
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.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
The end result is that the studyâ(TM)s overall findings are still accurate in one sense: There is a correlation between the Mediterranean diet and better health outcomes. But in another sense, the paper was entirely wrong: the Mediterranean diet does not cause better health outcomes. ...
A major study in 2017 found that if you adjusted for income, the diet doesnâ(TM)t actually improve heart health: Only wealthy people get the cardiovascular benefits of the Mediterranean diet. ...
UN data show that people in Mediterranean European countries are more likely to be overweight
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, but they are fairly rare in the real world. IIRC, Nile river flooding follows a Levy distribution, 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 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"?)
He's no moron. And yes he deserves clog arteries. And he will spend many years working towards earning them by living a life he finds fulfilling.
Would you like to comment on my smoking?
No, he's a moron, and he'll die sooner than I can care to think about him again.
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.
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.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Don't eat so often. Doesn't matter how much or how little you eat, if you do it too often.
Also see intermittent fasting.
The Mediterranean Doesn't Exist! "The Most Important Study of the Mediterranean Has Been Retracted" -- News at 11.
... and now they're good. Are you looking at a stoplight or something? And now a message BAD AGAIN from GOOD our I'M NOT EVEN GOING TO SAY IT sponsor.
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
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
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.
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.
So it turns out that years of an undiagnosed thyroid disease has left my metabolism a shit hole.
That was something the doctors warned me about.
Would you believe I'm an avid cyclist who pursues about 3 hours a night cycling and then 30 minutes in the morning. If I can get away from the office non-sense then I squeeze in a 20-30 minute jog? Still... a little pudgy.
I also have to have one of the most vicious diet plans ever just to break even. For me... I think my metabolism is too shot for carbs and it shows when I consume them. I no longer do! I couldn't have wheat anyway so that isn't much more of a jump.
It's a slow and horrible climb to just break even. I completely understand why some people give up. It's not a life for everyone.
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. :)
So why are so many obese retarded Republicans still stuffing their faces, lol? So responsible they've chosen to be obese as a life-choice, like Trump chose to be a traitor? Lol. Red state Republicans are the fattest Americans. Fact.
Deal with it, fatass snowflake traitors. https://www.alternet.org/personal-health/10-most-obese-states-america-and-right-wing-policies-promote-poor-health
This is no coincidence: Republicans promote policies that tend to entrench poverty, and obesity and poverty often go together. The Republican-dominated states where obesity rates are the highest are states where one is more apt to find more poverty, weak union protection, an abundance of people who lack health insurance and a strong opposition to the Affordable Care Act of 2010.
The obesity epidemic in the U.S. can be attributed to a wide variety of factors—not only poverty, lack of health insurance and inadequate access to healthy food, but also everything from sedentary lifestyles to stress. Obesity can’t be blamed exclusively on the conservative policies; there is plenty of obesity in Philadelphia, Baltimore and other Democrat-dominated cities. But Gallup’s poll clearly demonstrates that obesity is widespread in red-state America, and GOP policies, from opposition to healthcare reform to union-busting to cutting food stamps, only exacerbate the problem.
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Below are the 10 most obese states with analysis of the economic and political conditions in those states.
1. Mississippi
Mississippi topped Gallup’s list of the U.S.’ most obese states with a 35.4% obesity rate. In other words, one in three Mississippi residents is obese (which is defined as having a body/mass index of 30 or higher). And Mississippi is as Republican as it gets: not since Jimmy Carter’s victory in 1976 has a Democrat carried Mississippi in a presidential race. The U.S.’ most obese state is also its poorest, and Mississippi’s healthcare crisis only makes matters worse: one in five Mississippi residents lacked health insurance in 2013. Regardless, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant (a Republican) remains a vehement opponent of the Affordable Care Act, refusing any type of Medicaid expansion via Obamacare in his state. The people who need healthcare reform the most in Mississippi—the obese, the uninsured, the poor, the unemployed or underemployed—are the very people Bryant and other Republicans have turned their backs on.
2. West Virginia
West Virginia has long been a poster child for white rural poverty in the United States, and it isn’t hard to understand why. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, West Virginia (which was 92% white in 2012) had a poverty rate of 17.6% from 2008-2012 compared to 14.9% nationwide. In some West Virginia counties, life expectancy is only slightly higher than it is in Ghana or Haiti—and the fact that West Virginia has the second highest obesity rate in the U.S. (34.4% in Gallup’s poll) certainly isn’t helping West Virginia residents live longer. West Virginia does have a Democratic governor (Earl Ray Tomblin) and Democrats (many of them center-right Blue Dogs) presently dominate West Virginia’s state senate. Nonetheless, Republican ideas are widespread in West Virginia, and Republican Evan Jenkins (a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives) has been campaigning on repealing the Affordable Care Act. Given West Virginia’s obesity and poverty rates and frighteningly low life expectancy, rolling back healthcare reform is the last thing that state should be doing in 2014.
3. Delaware
Although the least obese states in Gallup’s poll were generally either swing states or blue states (including California, Hawaii, New York and Connecticut), Gallup considers Democrat-dominated Delaware the third most obese state in the country thanks to an obesity rate of 34.3%.
Why does it bother you that Republican states are the most obese states by far? Does eating trash to excess not appeal to you, lol GOP traitor? Don't lie, we all can tell already lol. You sweat grease when you lie.
That eggs are bad then later they said good thing sucks. I buy two dozen eggs each week from Walmart for 24 cents each. It's basically my only protein source since I work at Microsoft with crappy pay and commuting take most of my time and a lot of money. My total cholesterol is 38 mg/dL which is only about a third of what is considered dangerously low of 120 mg/dL Eggs at least in my case don't raise your cholesterol.
Apparently there is some truth in that.
SeriousScience - Microbiome and Diet - Tim Spector
And now there is a poop study, for a diabetes trial, about how eating red grapes and olive oil changes the gut bacteria.
Lol, every fat man has a thyroid issue...
It doesnâ(TM)t violate the laws of physics. Your body temperature doesnâ(TM)t drop to 62 degrees. Your body expends energy, and if you donâ(TM)t eat enough kJ/calories you will lose weight.
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.
This is how science is supposed to work...and why religion doesn't.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Measuring caloric intake is pointless unless you also measure caloric output. Actually doing that means collecting and burning your piss and shit.
Stop eating stupid your body doesn't need it
https://qz.com/1305718/the-sci... link to https://qz.com/1045037/the-med...
now whether you trust "QZ.com" is another story but they properly link to the original article : https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/n... and https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/n...
all those quick carbs we've been raised on, primarily loads of sugars and white weat, is what slowly causes insulin tolerance and type 2 diabetes, sickness of the vascular system and the heart.
I don't understand how people can still question whether a low-carb diet is actually good for you.
And I will maintain this position until another self-taught statistician refutes the claims of the first one, causing the retraction to be retracted. Seriously, though... it is a statistically proven fact that 74 percent of all statistics are 100 percent made up on the spot, 93 percent of the time, every time. Usually. Always.
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.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Hawt digity dawg, ima fittin ta go git me some eggs, a shitload of bacon, sausage, some hashed browned taters, and cheesy grits, plus biscuits and gravy to celebrate the downfall of the Mediterranean diet! No more of that Greek Yogurt crap for me! Whooo hoooo! Iâ(TM)m even a have some bluburry pancaekz an syrup, an know that I is gonna live just as long! Yippie Kai-ya, motherfuckers!
The Mediterranean Doesn't Exist! "The Most Important Study of the Mediterranean Has Been Retracted" -- News at 11. 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 ... and now they're good. Are you looking at a stoplight or something? And now a message BAD AGAIN from GOOD our I'M NOT EVEN GOING TO SAY IT sponsor.
Thank you, Lewis Black. (He said basically the same thing as you, but funny.)
Interesting that it was the original lead author who read the paper about "non-random studies" and started looking back at the data in the studies. At least in the Quartz TFA, this puts the Med diet paper author in a fairly good light - good on . you, mate...
If with "some" you mean extremely few that all suffer from a rare condition then yes you are technically correct but also irrelevant to the question at hand.
The eggs thing have scientifically just been first bad and then not bad, what the media then shouts about the matter is a completely different matter. The reason why it was first seen as bad was that scientists could see that high cholesterol in your blood is bad for your health and that egg contained large amounts of cholesterol, later after more studies the scientists found out that digested cholesterol does not increase your cholesterol blood levels and thus eggs are no longer bad (for that particular reason).
But none poop out double.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Half the comments seem to be going madly off. :)
What I remember reading on retraction watch (which everyone should follow, because it's great) is that there were problems with the study. Not that the study was completely invalid or that the outcomes were now proven false. The data has to be re-analyzed based on the problems and new, if any, conclusions should be drawn from the data. If the methodological errors can be accounted for meaningfully then perhaps new, more solid, and probably less grandiose conclusions can be drawn.
One study, no matter how convincing, is just one study. The conclusions of one study are just that. Dozens of studies and lots of replications and confirmations lead to things that are closer to accuracy, but even then...
The real problem with science is that not enough time is spent in replications. They don't get published, and you can't build a career on replications. Oh, the other problem is that no one publishes null results... that's a fail. If we had studies that published null results we'd know what not to do, which is often more important than what gets published.
What it says about a diet, in this case, is really of scant importance. One size doesn't fit all in dieting anyway.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369118X.2013.808365
And coffee
People like this are the super-heroes of science, doing tons of work to find the bad science and weed it out.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
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.
Om, nomnomnom...
Or use that for the mornings hash browns, unless you share my opinion that white bread can be too white every other morning.
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.
Om, nomnomnom...