Eggs will kill you!!!!!
As a UK resident: Thank god it's not London, London but London, Ontario. Phew. Thought the goons in epidemiology at Imperial College had been at it again. Happily the shame for this has to go to Canada. Oh dear, sorry Canada.
Peter
It seems that the interwebs is getting better at jumping on these badly designed studies with bad analysis. You're is the fifth (and shortest) article I've found disassembling this study since yesterday. Chris Masterjohn's was the most detailed.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteHere is the link:
http://www.westonaprice.org/blogs/cmasterjohn/2012/08/16/does-eating-egg-yolks-increase-arterial-plaque/#comment-3804
This is a correlative study – thus it could easily be a shared association to something else that is eaten at the same time – toast with jam(high carbs),bacon – etc. Or other habits of egg eaters ( they smoke more ). People were told for years to avoid eggs for good health – I think it is likely that the same people that avoided eggs were also avoiding other things and exercising, quitting smoking etc..
These were also patients that had suffered TSAs – I would expect this group to have more people with e3/e3 gene types – and they might well have trouble no matter what the source of saturated fats came from.
The conclusion of the paper shows that the authors do not understand what science is – correlations do not show cause and effect - yet they make the claim of causation. Another example of cargo cult science.
In too many places in the 21st century, the world has once again become flat. Why, it’s true!
ReplyDeleteSeriously, couldn’t these researchers do something more useful than kick this eggs demonization around again and again?
"Egg yolk years"...
ReplyDeleteSurely the application of the scientific method to the exclusion of innate rationality?
I'm ten times older in egg-yolk years than dog years. I'm sticking to eggs.
ReplyDeletePeter's dismissive response is entirely appropriate given that this is just the latest example of bullshit multiple regression modelling of non-data masquerading as science. Why waste time even reading these types of papers, let alone debunking them? This type of "research" exists only to keep researchers employed.
ReplyDeleteI think this is the study discussed on CBC radio during the evening drive home show. The fellow interviewed was so rude....between that and his bogus study, I give him an F.
ReplyDeleteHumpty Dumpty had a great fall.
ReplyDelete@Karl,
" it could easily be a shared association to something else that is eaten at the same time"
like egg whites, for instance. Weird how these eggs were magically separated.
Reading about this made me up my egg intake, and I'm not the only one.
My poor Canada....I swear, we're not all bad like that. haha
ReplyDeletePlenty of safe and trusty farms that produce quality chickens that give quality eggs. haha.
One day I'd like to do what you do---have my own chickens in the backyard. First, I need my own place though.
Oh Canada...
ReplyDeleteI think the study is deeply flawed because of (1) very high standard deviation errors in the data, (2) authors' conflict of interest (see below), and also because (3) instead of taking egg consumption per day as an independent variable, it combined egg consumption with age by multiplying it by time in years that a person has consumed eggs, representing it as "eggs years" (and "cigarettes years" ).
This approach is intrinsically flawed because it over-emphasizes person's age and no amount of statistical processing for age correction based on mathematical models, can make it more believable! It is like one convolutes one extra variable (age) into the data set, and then deconvolutes that out. That process is non-linear because it involves the product term of the two variables: eggs consumption frequency and the age.
Obviously, risk of most diseases such as arteriosclerosis, stroke and heart disease does increases with age resulting in the false conclusion drawn by the authors. What they have really proven has nothing to do with cigarettes or eggs but rather that the older a person, the higher the risk! Had they used another independent lifestyle factor in addition to eggs and smoking, for example drinking water using the same flawed statistical methodology it would have resulted in a similar misconception. It wouldn't be surprising had they concluded that the water intake expressed in "glasses of water times years" may have also appeared to be almost as harmful as smoking!
As for the aspect (2) - see this quote from Ben Fury's comment (Masterjon's blog):
www.westonaprice.org/blogs/cmasterjohn/2012/08/16/does-eating-egg-yolks-increase-arterial-plaque/#comment-3849
Conflict of Interest
"Dietary cholesterol and egg yolks: Not for patients at risk of vascular disease", Can J Cardiol 2010.
Dr. Spence and Dr. Davignon have received honoraria and speaker’s fees from several pharmaceutical companies manufacturing lipid-lowering drugs, and Dr. Davignon has received support from Pfizer Canada for an annual atherosclerosis symposium: his reasearch has been funded in part by Pfizer Canada, AstraZeneca Canada Inc. and Merck Frosst Canada Ltd.