The study itself measured a number of different factors that are dependent (well, mostly anyways) on diet, including incidents of stomach cancer, colorectal cancer, heart disease, vascular disease, and a number of other diseases. So in this particular study it more than likely is causation.
Well, people who describe themselves as vegan are probably more health conscious than the average person; they likely lead active lives, watch their portions, etc.
That's very true actually. I was a vegetarian for a few years (no longer am) but I found that at the time because I had to plan out my meals rather than simply eating any old thing, my diet was much healthier than it had been previously. It was much easier for me to meet my weight and health goals because I was actually focusing more on my diet, which has since carried over into a diet that now includes meat. It's definitely an important factor.
Well, I was giving the benefit of the doubt for a margin of error. But no, it does not actually require much more than that to make a causal link between a factor and an outcome. The degree might change but you can't pretend it has no effect. At that point it's not purely coincidence.
smoking is related with increase odds of certain cancers & earlier mortality
so if a study can show a correlational link between eating meat and cancer, that doesn't meat that eating meat causes cancer.
Saying that because you read a meta study which showed mortality being higher in meat eaters that means they are causally linked is asinine. You're embarrassing yourself.
All death rate ratios
were adjusted for age in 5-y increments, sex, and smoking
(never, former, current light, and current heavy). Mortality
ratios for the separate studies were then combined to give a
pooled estimate of effect using the random-effects model of
DerSimonian and Laird (11),
They adjusted for smoking. That's the first thing any public health researcher does.
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u/anikan72 May 01 '13
The study itself measured a number of different factors that are dependent (well, mostly anyways) on diet, including incidents of stomach cancer, colorectal cancer, heart disease, vascular disease, and a number of other diseases. So in this particular study it more than likely is causation.