From the BBC:
The speed someone walks may predict the likelihood of developing dementia later in life, according to researchers in the US. They also told a conference that grip strength in middle-age was linked to the chance of a stroke... The researchers said slower walking speeds were linked to a higher risk of dementia and stronger grip with a lower risk of stroke.
This all reminds me a bit of when telling somebody at school that if their hand won't cover the whole of their face, they'll get cancer.
Friday, 17 February 2012
Health scare story du jour
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9 comments:
Or telling kids not to pop a pimple or they'll get cancer and die. Had an aunt who used that one all the time.
It appears that the entire scientific establishment now believes that correlation is the same as causation.
Cripes! I walk fast and I have strong grip! I'm doomed.
Rob, yes, another way in which we are back in the C17th.
Lola, you've got it the wrong way around.
R, I don't think they said anything more than that there was a correlation.
L, no, walking fast and having strong grip are GOOD signs.
Surely a few leeches will solve the problem.
Rob:
It appears that the entire readership of Mark Wadsworth now believes that one bad story taints a whole profession.
re Anon 11:50
"It appears that the entire readership of Mark Wadsworth now believes that one bad story taints a whole profession".
One bad story ? One ?
Are you referring to the apparent now minimum one item of cod-science "health oriented" drivel a day then ?
It might come as a surprise but people have published books which are just "collections" of this garbage.
The "profession" regularly taints itself, in the way it produces, ahem, science to order, for whatever interest group is willing to pay the tab ...
AKH, we've already got enough of those.
Anon 11.50, where did I say that this is a "bad story" which "taints the whole profession". I said it was a "scare story". They want everybody who walks slowly or has a weak grip to be scared. The correlation might be there, it might not be there, what do we know? But the fear they'd like to generate is genuine.
Anon 20.20, ta for back up.
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