|
|
|
|
|
|
by tofof
491 days ago
|
|
|
I have no idea why you're being downvoted; https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371%2F... is one of many good studies that show that the 'French Paradox' is little more than socioeconomic effect. The association with lower rates of cardiovascular disease among moderate drinkers shows an effect modification of 1.32 when comparing low vs mid socioeconomic position (SEP), 1.36 for mid vs high, and then unsurprisingly 1.63 for low vs high. This strongly suggests that socioeconomic position has a direct and confounding effect on the outcome measure (cardiovascular disease mortality). The alternative is that socioeconomic position modifies the effect of the treatment (moderate alcohol consumption) itself. This would be a sensible interpretation of an effect modification of a drug administered in the presence/absence of, say, grapefruit juice or DMSO, but severe mental gymnastics would be required to argue for the existence of a mechanism through which socioeconomic class could directly mediate the biochemical effects of alcohol on the body's cardiovascular system. |
|
|
The irony of using one study...yeesh.
Also: science is iterative, people. Nobody in the scientific community looks at one study in a vacuum. Follow-up studies seek to confirm, efine, build off of, or come up with a different theory.
Only internet commenters who pride themselves in being "skeptics" do this - because they think skeptics are the smartest people, failing to understand that uneducated skepticism has little value.
When they hear the study had some flaw, they shout "AHA! RESEARCH IS BUNK!" and assume everything that came out of it was useless. Or, more commonly, they don't see some obvious potential flaw not specifically spelled out as being addressed just like a math paper wouldn't explain basic calculus - and assume they've found some flaw that somehow multiple people who have studied in their field for years - missed.
It's like looking at a bowl of cake batter and crying out "that's soup, you're incompetent!" to a chef who has a Michelin star, because it doesn't look or taste like a cake.