The 2012 Atherosclerosis egg study: More smoking is associated with more plaque, unless you eat more eggs

var citeN=0;I blogged before about the study by David Spence and colleagues, published online in July 2012 in the journal Atherosclerosis (citeN=citeN+1;document.write(Number(citeN))1). This study attracted a lot of media attention (e.g., citeN=citeN+1;document.write(Number(citeN))2). The article is titled: “Egg yolk consumption and carotid plaque”. The study argues that “regular consumption of egg yolk should be avoided by persons at risk of cardiovascular disease”. It hints at egg yolks being unhealthy in general, possibly even more so than cigarettes. I used the numbers in Table 2 of the article (only 5 rows of data, one per quintile; i.e.,...

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Does tallness cause heart disease? No, but sex does

var citeN=0;Popular beliefs about medical issues are sometimes motivated by a statistical phenomenon known as “spurious relationship”, among other names. Two variables X and Y are influenced by a third variable C, which leads to X and Y being correlated and thus the impression that X and Y are causally associated. Take a look at the table below, which I blogged about in a previous post (citeN=citeN+1;document.write(Number(citeN))1). This table shows that there is a strong unadjusted correlation between height and arterial stiffness, a marker of heart disease. The likelihood that the correlation is due to chance is lower than one tenth of a percentage...

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