Harvard Nutcase

Two nights ago CBS announced on radio startling news, Harvard researchers found nuts prolong lives.
I sniffed the air and smelled Walter Willett and the Nurse study.

Sho nuff.
When you read the paper you will have to slog through the authors elaborate explanations for how they did this food intake study and put together an all cause mortality study that you should consider dispositive. Until they do their next food questionnaire of all the nurses.
For measures of results or benefits of eating nuts, recall that the hazard ratios are used in this study and are reported in the range less than 1.0. Hazard ratios is the successor to Relative Risk and Odds Ratio.
The authors found a hazards ration in the range of 0.12 or a 12% “association” if you know what they are doing. 12% associations in observational studies are not adequate proof of causation at all, even if Harvard and its home town journal say so.
There are many authors so they all pitched in to make this sound like a really scientific study that retrieved the nut intake habits of the dead. Low and behold the data mine, that included the doubtful endpoint of a desk decision on cause of death, showed a result, and the benefits of eating nuts, no doubt.
Nutcase junk scientists need a home, why not torturing data from questionnaires and desk reviewing death information.
So the nut lovers enjoy a nutty piece of research. This nanny project works though, carry your recycled water bottle and recycled nut bag on your belt in holsters–complementary. Live forever. Nuts make you thirsty and that’s good for water intake, right?
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1307352#t=articleTop

8 thoughts on “Harvard Nutcase”

  1. Ah but wasn’t there some other study that eating peanuts or almonds through the day will make you lose weight. (Answer – yes)
    The real proem with all these junk studies is that we have to pay for them with our tax money.

  2. john1282: Thanks for helping out keeping this site running.
    And, since you appear interested, from above:
    “…however I know you’re more deadly critique would be…”
    should be
    “…however I know your more deadly critique would be…” .

  3. my wife and milloy both corrected me yesterday, peanuts are legumes, not nuts. you got yur walnut and such, that’s nuts. Tree nuts, these researchers say.
    I do have you problem, when patty buys a can of nuts I find myself hanging around the can.
    so did I get the message right that you had an edit correction on a they’re to substitute for another phenetic form?
    couldn’t find it looking again.
    steve tells me good things about you, Mr. Greene waddaudo when you aren’t doing research and commentary?

  4. mr. greene,
    milloy says nice things about you and tells me you were justifiably stunned by my lack of knowledge about the difference between there/their/they’re, and now I am trying to find the error so I can correct but I am stumped, big time.
    please direct me to the place.
    and keep up your commentary, the last one was outstanding, pointing out the biggest problem with these willett nurse study reports–who knows what they ate in 1966?
    however I know you’re more deadly critique would be–it’s data dredged nonsense.
    nuts, as mr. steve points out, are a pastime of the better educated.
    he doesn’t even give me credit for eating peanuts, which he and my wife inform me are legumes, not nuts.
    wadduino?
    John Dale Dunn MD JD Consultant Emergency Services/Peer Review Civilian Faculty, Emergency Medicine Residency Carl R. Darnall Army Med Center Fort Hood, Texas Medical Officer, Sheriff Bobby Grubbs Brown County, Texas 325 784 6697 (h) 642 5073 (c)

  5. I saw the report over lunch. The news people were saying at least an ounce of nuts/day cured or prevented all sorts of diseases. The more nuts the better, all based on this study. I love nuts darn near to the point of addiction, so I must be immune to every disease known to man. The one problem is that nuts are generally high calorie foods and can add to weight. Also, who keeps records sufficient high-reliability correlations? I don’t remember how many or how often I’ve eaten nuts in 2013, much less how often I put peanuts in Pepsi’s in 1962.

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