lol lol lol lol wrote:
One of the reasons why this study is bad, and why the China Study data is more useful, is that the data for the study above came from the West, where for decades we have been told that eating a fiber-rich diet is healthful, and that eating less fiber is unhealthful. This causes
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/statins/the-adherer-effect/.
The "adherer effect", yes I am aware of it. So what you are saying is that people who ate their grains and fiber are also more likely to have followed other (think about it) healthy habits, like: exercising more, not smoking, drinking in moderation, and eating less sat fat/red meat (ha ha. You guys brought it up). Yes, the study did bear that out. And you are saying that it is these other healthy habits that might have been the reason for the reduced death rates in high grain eaters, not the actual grain or fiber consumption. Yes, great, not a novel concept. However.
a) these other factors were controlled by the authors. Such controlling of confounders is not perfect, but is a useful tool for factoring in the effect of other health factors. What did they find? despite your "genius's" pretty graphs, while the confounders did lessen the overall Risk Ratio, the reduced risk of death held strongly across ALL categories of potential confounders; smoking status, age, BMI, meat intake, etc.
( ** And if grains (especially wheat) are (is) soooooo bad for us, shouldn't these people who eat so much wheat be dying more, instead of less, no matter what good habits they have? Shouldn't the evil of wheat outweigh the good of a salad or walk around the block? I mean, if grains are that bad for you......** )
b) What's interesting, is that people like you bringing up this adherer effect are acknowledging that the experts are probably right about what constitutes a healthy habit, since you are saying that adherers are followers of the recommendations of mainstream science (not the the rogue and radicals like Atkins or Taubes) and are THUS MORE LIKELY to be healthy. Interesting. So you are acknowledging that the mainstream experts are CORRECT that not smoking, exercising, eating your fruits and veggies, and keeping high sat fat red meat intake low, etc are all healthy habits. Wait, I thought that the "experts" didn't know what they were talking about? And furthermore, if the mainstream health experts were right about all those things (because you and the Genius seem to think that it is THESE habits that are keeping the grain eaters healthy), then why aren't these same experts right about grains ??? Sounds like the "powers that be" have a good track record with dispensing healthy advice, IF, AS YOU CONTEND, adherers are more healthy than non-adherers BECAUSE they follow the advice of these so-called mainstream experts. Very interesting indeed.
And maybe you and are the genius are correct, maybe the adherers were not dying less because of grain intake per se, but because, like good little children/sheep, they followed the basic expert guidelines on nutrition, like those dispensed by the USDA! (gasp!)
If mainstream health/diet advice dispensed by "experts" like the USDA is generally wrong (as you and Taubes and the genius contend) than adherers should be less healthy, since they are likely to be following this advice. Seems like you guys are now saying that these experts give good advice after all.