Adventists are okay with meat as long as it’s kosher generally.
I think the bigger factor is that they’re teetotalers.
My data points, though: two of my vegetarian teetotaling Adventist family members died of Alzheimer’s. The lifestyle is clearly not a cheat code for defeating dementia.
A core part of the scientific method is that you attempt to isolate a single variable at a time. If anything, all this suggests is that this was a better diet-controlled sample population for measuring the correlation of eggs and Alzheimer's than the general public. That said, the methodology of this study does not allow for inferring a relationship between Alzheimer's and meat consumption in either direction.
There could be an interaction with the diet though. For example, what if the nutrient in eggs that prevents Alzheimer's is something that also occurs in meat?
Also, it seems likely that among this population many of those who don't or rarely consume eggs are vegan or almost vegan, so it might be more accurate to say that veganism is correlated with Alzheimer's.
> In addition, to evaluate potential bias because of unmeasured systematic differences between consumers and nonconsumers, we conducted a sensitivity analysis excluding vegans. Vegans comprised a substantial portion of the zero egg consumption group, which could disproportionately influence this group, and they often differ in other lifestyle or health-related characteristics.
So they eliminated vegans from the sensitivity analysis despite them comprising a substantial portion of the no-egg group.
If the analysis doesn’t hold with vegans included, it’s probably saying a lot about dairy rather than eggs.
Since the study was done on Seventh Day Adventists, it's worth noting that they are all vegetarian, so no meat based protein options here...
About half of the study participants were non-vegetarian, IIUC. I wonder if they found any correlation after slicing by vegetarianism?
Adventists are okay with meat as long as it’s kosher generally.
I think the bigger factor is that they’re teetotalers.
My data points, though: two of my vegetarian teetotaling Adventist family members died of Alzheimer’s. The lifestyle is clearly not a cheat code for defeating dementia.
A core part of the scientific method is that you attempt to isolate a single variable at a time. If anything, all this suggests is that this was a better diet-controlled sample population for measuring the correlation of eggs and Alzheimer's than the general public. That said, the methodology of this study does not allow for inferring a relationship between Alzheimer's and meat consumption in either direction.
There could be an interaction with the diet though. For example, what if the nutrient in eggs that prevents Alzheimer's is something that also occurs in meat?
Also, it seems likely that among this population many of those who don't or rarely consume eggs are vegan or almost vegan, so it might be more accurate to say that veganism is correlated with Alzheimer's.
It is very difficult to do that in biological systems where doing A in isolation can have the opposite effect of doing A while also doing B.
eggs are a highly concentrated natural source of choline. meat does contain choline but nowhere near as much as eggs.
drawing the connection between cholinergic activity and alzheimers is left as an exercise for the unaware reader.
Cancer is also inversely correlated with alzheimer's.
Phrased another way, egg consumption is correlated with cancer.
> In addition, to evaluate potential bias because of unmeasured systematic differences between consumers and nonconsumers, we conducted a sensitivity analysis excluding vegans. Vegans comprised a substantial portion of the zero egg consumption group, which could disproportionately influence this group, and they often differ in other lifestyle or health-related characteristics.
So they eliminated vegans from the sensitivity analysis despite them comprising a substantial portion of the no-egg group.
If the analysis doesn’t hold with vegans included, it’s probably saying a lot about dairy rather than eggs.