Causation and correlation

General
1

I'm sorry I couldn't leave this alone and this has nothing to do with diet. Diet CAN help.

So you are going to get an intro to statistics lecture. No test.

The whole correlation and causation thing is important for us to understand. Google has made billions on advertizing based on key word mining from their search engine (the ads you see on the side of this page are not the ads I see the ads are placed based on the casuation/correlation thing my daughter is getting married on a cruise ship asian cruise next spring. I've been researching the cruise wedding options etc - I now have 3 ads for dating services and asian brides not a bad thing I printed some off and left them laying on my desk at home. I got spare ribs and saurkraut for dinner and it wasn't even my birthday)

Its important to understand because as people with a chronic disease we get hammered almost daily with Causation and correlation. Some of it (lots of it) comes from our own research and reading studies, monographs articles etc. There constantly somebody trying to turn a correlation(association) into a causation. We here it a lot with diets, supplements etc. but also with basic research

Here are a few that are absolutely true and can NOT be disproven the evidence is clear and unquestionable:

"People with large hands don't live as long as people with small hands" or put the way I speak at my day job "The size of your palm is negatively correlated with how long you will live"

"The more firemen are sent to a fire, the more damage is done"

Should pope Francis be worried? "every time Wales win the rugby grand slam, a Pope dies, except for 1978 when Wales was really good, and two Popes died."

Those are easy to figure out the flaw in reasoning, but how about when we get medical? what is the only possible conclusion of this (actual test question):

  • Americans and English eat a lot of fat food. There is a high rate of cardiovascular diseases in US and UK.

  • French eat a lot of fat food, but they have a low(er) rate of cardiovascular diseases.

  • Americans and English drink a lot of alcohol. There is a high rate of cardiovascular diseases in US and UK.

  • Italians drink a lot of alcohol but, again, they have a low(er) rate of cardiovascular diseases.

Eat and drink what you want. And you have a higher chance of getting a heart attack if you speak English!

A simpler one:

In the early elementary school years, astrological sign is correlated with IQ, but this correlation weakens with age and disappears by adulthood.

Which all leads to a recent the New England Journal of medicine entitled:

Chocolate Consumption, Cognitive Function, and Nobel Laureates

Franz H. Messerli, M.D.

N Engl J Med 2012; 367:1■■■■October 18, 2012DOI: 10.1056/NEJMon1211064

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMon1211064:


It answers the age old question Chocolate consumption could hypothetically improve cognitive function not only in individuals but in whole populations. Could there be a correlation between a country's level of chocolate consumption and its total number of Nobel laureates per capita? The regresion and tailanalysis are perfect. How is this any different than the above examples I gave? its not EXCEPT its in one of the most respect medical journals.


2

All I have to say .. is huh??? You lost me on the 1st paragraph.....

3

Sorry I get carried away....

We get hit daily with something that is "associated" to PsA. that get blown into a "cause" for our disease. Usually its diet "I went vegan and I quit hurting" I started taking tumeric and my inflamation went down (thats one of my favorites - tummeric is a nightshade)

This isn't funny but it went on for several years We take Biologic drugs which are ANTI tnf's The original belief was that because there was active tnfs then they must help and patients were given additional tnf's people were driving to mexico to buy interfuron to cure cancer and Arthritis. In that case the causation and correlation was inflammation causes tnf production.

All of the "stuff" we come across diet, foods, supplements etc etc. is also based on a causation and correlation basis. It too is wrong - "inflammation causes PsA" Eliminate the "inflammation" and you eliminate the PsA. We should KNOW that isn't true........ But we keep hanging onto a wrong causation and correlation that looks to be absolutely true. Like: the larger the shoe size the better the reader.

4

The way to test the hypothesis would be to wean Americans off the nasty brown paraffin that passes for chocolate around here and onto the REAL stuff and see how the next few decades of Nobels go.

5

Yes, you did get carried away, but I enjoyed it so that’s OK. I’m not sure I could get 100% on the test (did you say something about a test?) but I did get the cartoon!! Yay me!

And at the end of the day, you’ll agree that keeping your weight down reduces mechanical wear on the poor joints, and omega-3 FAs work to reduce inflammation. But the disease marches on at a pace unique to the patient.

And Louise, I totally agree with you and will volunteer to be a study subject. Swiss, 85%. Do you agree?


tntlamb said:

Sorry I get carried away....

6

You're on, Seenie!

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BTW there is extra credit in the chocolate example.....

If you look closely to the graph you will discover the STONGEST correlation besides consuming chocolate is ones proximity to Sweeden...... I asked the good Doctor Messerli about it and never got a reply.

8

There is ALWAYS an outlier

9

I am yet to meet a chocolate I didn't like, I am up for the chocolate test as long as its a TASTE test lol

10

My son has autism and this is a topic that comes up frequently on autism boards as well. Mostly vaccines and autism.

I guess for me the cause isn’t my concern I can’t change I have PsA and he has autism. I would much rather focus on cures and effective treatments.

11

The Finns have ALWAYS been the outliers of the Nordics. but no, outliers increase the confidence level

Laura E D said:

That was the French speaking Swiss...Do outliers effect the confidence interval?

12

My brain tried to process all that info, but I think it's on vacation today. I think I get the gist of it though.

I know, for me, diet can have a huge impact on my pain levels and how I feel. I also know that no matter what I eat or don't eat, my PsA is actively damaging my body. A naturopathic physician pointed out to me once that with PsA, the body isn't destroying a joint in one fell swoop, it's taking it's time, doing it little by little, most of the time just enough to cause inflammation but not excessive amounts of pain. The major part of the pain comes once significant, irreparable damage is already done

dakotasun: As an aside... I have two sons with Aspergers (five kids total), and the cause of autism debate rages on and on. One fellow parent of a child on the spectrum who believes without a doubt that vaccines are the cause of autism was questioning me as to how I could have knowingly vaccinated my kids after having a child,my oldest, on the spectrum. My response was that my eldest son, who has Aspergers, was fully vaccinated until he was 5 or so, and my youngest son, who also has Aspergers, has not had one single vaccine. She didn't know what to do with that info. I asked her if we could just concentrate on helping our kids and awaiting news from professionals as to the cause, rather than passing blame. So I hear you on focusing on cures and effective treatments (for both Autism and PsA!).

dakotasun said:

My son has autism and this is a topic that comes up frequently on autism boards as well. Mostly vaccines and autism.

I guess for me the cause isn't my concern I can't change I have PsA and he has autism. I would much rather focus on cures and effective treatments.
13

I wish I could “Like” your reply.



dakotasun said:

My son has autism and this is a topic that comes up frequently on autism boards as well. Mostly vaccines and autism.


I guess for me the cause isn’t my concern I can’t change I have PsA and he has autism. I would much rather focus on cures and effective treatments.

14


Mmmmmm chocolate! Funny enough I’m not allowed to eat Yorkie bars! Decrees from my sons from the age of about 8…it says on the wrapper " not for girls" hows that for marketing!?


Easternlady said:

I am yet to meet a chocolate I didn't like, I am up for the chocolate test as long as its a TASTE test lol

15

Sounds like common sense to me Lamb, I think :slight_smile: That’s what we need common sense approach to PsA. I have many patients who, out of kindness (?) tell me to try this that and the other…I have to stop myself telling them their kidneys will start working again if the bury a carrot in the left hand corner of their garden on the first full moon in a month with an R in it…and when they say “really?” Saying “of course not!!! we tend to use a scientific approach in the NHS” :wink:

16

I too get tired of well meaning people and their advise (or "you are too young for arthritis"!) I love your carrot burying! I may try that when my patience wanes!

17

Excellent advice "Louise". May have to try something similar as well. Or what about just, well I tried drinking my own urine, but it didn't work. My doctor told me to limit non-research based therapies.

18

Weeeell sometimes. We had a 504 meeting for my grandson last wed (very high fuctioning Aspy - 169 IQ. Some meds but very strict diet as well) New school people this year, weren't sure why we were meeting and didn't want to follow through on a few items. Fortunately thurs is chocolate milk day. I pulled Grandpa Rate on on my DIL and told the teach to let Kyle have the chocolate milk. Hedid and now has a very lengthy 504 including a "short bus" pickup (it already came to the ranch next door anyway) which was his biggest need as he was freaking out on the main bus.

19

This is a totally awesome discussion and I'm grateful to Lamb for kicking this off and to everyone else for piling on.

I know people mean well when they start a conversation with "have you tried...?". Like you, Louise, I have an answer and it has to do with hard boiling a dozen eggs in beet juice and peeling them at midnight on the vernal equinox. Like your carrot burying it usually ends up with a "really? does that work?".

I've come across a couple of folks lately who are "choosing to not treat their PsA". I just don't know how to handle that. I can understand people dealing with their symptoms in less conventional ways--using mindfulness and meditation to handle their aches and pains, but to ignore that their disease is likely making daily progress on their body while they feel OK because they're handling their aches and pains just tears me up inside. To me it's like crashing your car and breaking a leg and thinking that it's all OK because you got your car back from the body shop and it looks as good as new. Meanwhile you ignore the broken bone poking out of your leg. Maybe it's just me but aaaarrrgggghhhhh.

Anyway, I'm up for proving there's a correlation between chocolate consumption and continuing to have PsA with Seenie and Louise. I'd also like to prove that ex-pat Brits can stay in shape in the US on a steady diet of G+T, salt and vinegar crisps and Vimto. Living the dream, people. Living the dream.

20

Oops, wrong place



janeatiu said:

This is a totally awesome discussion and I’m grateful to Lamb for kicking this off and to everyone else for piling on.

I know people mean well when they start a conversation with “have you tried…?”. Like you, Louise, I have an answer and it has to do with hard boiling a dozen eggs in beet juice and peeling them at midnight on the vernal equinox. Like your carrot burying it usually ends up with a “really? does that work?”.

I’ve come across a couple of folks lately who are “choosing to not treat their PsA”. I just don’t know how to handle that. I can understand people dealing with their symptoms in less conventional ways–using mindfulness and meditation to handle their aches and pains, but to ignore that their disease is likely making daily progress on their body while they feel OK because they’re handling their aches and pains just tears me up inside. To me it’s like crashing your car and breaking a leg and thinking that it’s all OK because you got your car back from the body shop and it looks as good as new. Meanwhile you ignore the broken bone poking out of your leg. Maybe it’s just me but aaaarrrgggghhhhh.

Anyway, I’m up for proving there’s a correlation between chocolate consumption and continuing to have PsA with Seenie and Louise. I’d also like to prove that ex-pat Brits can stay in shape in the US on a steady diet of G+T, salt and vinegar crisps and Vimto. Living the dream, people. Living the dream.