ham Study data to find some associations between known risk factors and inc idences of stroke and dementia.
The Framingham Study data is the world's largest database of risk factors and their correlations with disease. I referred to it extensively when writ ing about metabolic syndrome. So does practically everyone else who works i n the field or who reports on it.
N news article?
the risk-factor correlation. Then they applied straightforward statistical methods to see what the data tell us.
if you don't know how these associations are researched and measured in med icine, find out before jumping to conclusions.
1998?2001). WeThey start out trying to track down and measure KNOWN RISK FACTORS. This is risk analysis -- a very sophisticated branch of statistics. They're trying to measure the relationship between factors for which they already have an ecdotal evidence.
It's exactly like observing events, forming a hypothesis, and then testing it -- trying to disprove (or prove) it. But in this case, all they can show from the data is an ASSOCIATION, adjusting for other known risk factors. G iven the association, the next step is to study the correlation, looking fo r a hypothesis involving causation -- maybe. Sometimes they never find caus ation.
Nonsense. You either didn't read, or didn't understand, the statistical res ults that Iggy picked up right away. They corrected for other known risk fa ctors, using the huge database available from the Framingham Studies.
It's your logic that's poor, and you're the one who is starting off with so mething you want to prove. But you're doing a lousy job of proving it.
No it doesn't. This is how much of medical research is done. This is how th ey found out that smoking shortens lives. It's how they learned that a diet high in saturated fat leads to increased incidence of heart disease.
That's medical research, Martin.
Of course not. They weren't "testing." They were analyzing existing data. T he data is neutral and it was acquired before anyone thought to run this pa rticular analysis. Thus, there was no need for blind testing. The data acqu isition was done with no possibility of research bias.
Read the whole study and you'll see that (a), they corrected for other risk factors, and (b) they didn't attempt to determine the mechanism of action (as medical researchers would put it) or the "cause," as you put it.
To this day, they don't know the mechanism of action for many drugs, includ ing some antibiotics and cancer treatments that have saved thousands of liv es. That's medicine. They're looking for results, not necessarily for the p atterns of mediation and causation.