[missingrib]

Can someone explain to me what "Is Associated" means in this context? I know there are always comments about correlation/causation here, but I genuinely don't have enough of a stats background to actually understand what they are claiming.

If they have tried to control for confounding variables (people who skip breakfast are generally more unhealthy/more likely to be drug users/more likely to smoke, etc), what are the methods they use? Are they reliable?

I find myself thinking about making serious lifestyle changes in response to these articles, but many of them contradict each other.

[kadoban]

"is associated" means correlation, usually after whatever attempt (or no attempt, you have to read quite closely to tell) to account for confounding variables.

Even if they do make an attempt to control for such things, it's often useless. There's only so much you can do with limited data and if you're not of exceedingly high character, there's a lot of ways to cheat intentionally or accidentally.

So, this kind of result means very little. It _may_ be a thing that a better study could be based on, that's about it.

I personally would not be making changes in my life based on this type of result.

[fbdab103]

Associated typically means, "we saw these two things together". Maybe there is an underlying connection, but it at least looked funny (and/or enough to get a paper out the door).

Which is honestly about the best you can get from human behavior. Unlike rats, you cannot lock up humans for their lifetime, force-feeding them a diet of gruel for trial A meanwhile trial B gets a diet of corn-syrup and beer.

Better studies will try to subtract out meaningful differences (eg smokers vs non-smokers), but there is only so much that can be done when humans lie, cheat, steal, and misremember their behavior on questionnaires they fill out years after the fact.