[ale] OT (way out there): switching from beer to wine....

[Kilroy, Chris]

since neither of us have read the study itself (www.neurology.org and i'm not paying for it =p) we are not in a position to critique the nuts and bolts of a study based simply on a news story's representation of it.  the article on www.cnn.com is not the result of the research.  the result of the research and the author's words are in this week's Neurology. 

you can't so casually dismiss their sampling methodology when you really don't know at all how they performed it.  whatever winespectator.com says about wine drinkers is irrelevant about this article.  you and I don't know the methodology used to select the sample populations, but personally i think it is a safe bet they thought about various confounds ahead of time.  one doesnt need genetically identical test subjects either to get meaningful information. in general, if you have a reasonable sample size from within the same population the statistics will give you a pretty decent picture.  Obviously statistics are more subtle than this, but they are also significantly more powerful than you are giving them credit for.  

i have personally reviewed papers for Journal of Neuroscience and I can tell you it is not easy to get stuff published in good journals.  The reviewers certainly gave the paper a much more thorough critique than we will ever give here on ALE =).

and again, the authors of the study are not saying red wine flavonoids prevent dementia.  They report the finding that decreased instances of dementia in persons who drank red wine.  

this sort of study is perfect to be picked up as a news item because it can be simplified (not necessarily preserving the accuracy of the information) into a catchy headline: Does Red Wine Help Prevent Dementia?

->Irv Mullins:
->We'll probably never see a definitive study, because it's pretty hard for 
->people to _not_ know if what they're drinking is water or wine.


doesnt matter.  Somebody knowing they are drinking wine doesnt change the chemistry of the antioxidents in the wine and the free radicals in their blood.



->
->Nope. The people who drank no wine are not a sufficient control. True,
->they're people (as opposed to, say, rabbits -- who also drink no wine
->and suffer from little old-age dementia). But they clearly differ in
->many relevant factors from the wine-drinkers. 
->
->The fallacy here is the same as the one in the claim that sunlight
->causes heart disease, since more people die from heart 
->disease in sunny
->states (such as Florida) than in cooler states. Control for the number
->of retirees there, of course, and the link goes away.
->
->This is what makes experimental science so tricky, especially 
->with human
->subjects. The ideal experiment would take a thousand sets of identical
->twins at birth, separate them randomly into 2 groups, make 
->one set drink
->wine and another not, and then compare outcomes 70 years later. That
->would give you an unambiguous answer. The claim in the CNN 
->article falls
->so far short of this standard that, until some kind of real study is
->actually done, it's near useless as a guide to modifying behavior. 
->
->Wine drinkers tend to have higher incomes than beer drinkers and
->non-drinkers,
->according to this highly biased source 
->http://www.winespectator.com/Wine/Daily/News/0,1145,1812,00.html
->That alone brings in a big cluster of health and diet factors 
->which have
->little to do with wine drinking, but a lot to do with health 
->in old age.
->Off hand, I'd rather earn more money than change my drinking habits.
-> 
->Of course, I'm a homebrewer, so I am pretty rabid about my 
->beer already.
->
->-- CHS
->
->On Tue, 2002-11-12 at 14:58, Kilroy, Chris wrote:
->> certainly you should always take this sort of thing with 
->some skepticism.
->> 
->> but there was a control group in this study:
->> "People who had just a glass of wine a day had a lower risk 
->of dementia than people who drank no wine at all,"Â  
->> 
->> the people who drank no wine are the control.
->> 
->> this was published in a respected peer-reviewed journal,  
->and news articles often don't represent scientific papers 
->with the degree of accuracy that one would always prefer, no 
->doubt about it.
->> 
->> correlation is not causation of course.  
->> 
->> This article is by no means proof that red wine consumption 
->will lead to the preservation of cognitive function over the 
->course of an individual's life.  But there is a growing body 
->of knowledge that does strongly suggest a variety of benefits 
->to moderate consumption of red wine,  protection from LDL 
->oxidation and artherosclerosis for instance.
->> 
->> skepticism is always good though when it comes to analyzing 
->scientific findings!  =)
->> 
->> 
->> 
->>Â  
->> ->
->> ->Better watch out about studies like these. Wine drinking may be
->> ->associated with lower rates of dementia. That does not 
->mean that it
->> ->causes those lowered rates, as the story itself hints. 
->The real cause
->> ->may well have little to do with anything in the wine itself.
->> ->
->> ->Two crucial words missing from this report:
->> ->
->> ->controlled study
->> ->
->> ->That means a study which has a matched control group, so you can
->> ->actually verify that the one factor you're varying between the two
->> ->groups is the factor causing your observed result.
->> ->
->> ->-- CHS
->> ->
->> ->
->> ->On Tue, 2002-11-12 at 14:20, John Wells wrote:
->> ->> Stories like this
->> ->> 
->> ->(http://www.cnn.com/2002/HEALTH/conditions/11/11/wine.dementia
->> .reut/index.html)
->> >Â  make me think hard about giving up beer and switching to 
->wine.  After
->> > all, a man can't take any chances when it comes to his 
->thinking cap.
->> > 
->> > <AA FLAME BAIT>Yes, I enjoy beer on a weekly basis</AA 
->FLAME BAIT> with
->> > varying frequency, but have also enjoyed wine in the past 
->and would
->> > consider trying the admittedly difficult departure from 
->my good friend
->> > beer.
->> > 
->> > However, I'm no wine expert by any means, and really 
->don't know how to
->> > identify a wine that provides at least some quality for costs that
->> > approach beer's affordabilty.  I enjoy both white and red 
->wines and would
->> > like to find a reasonably affordable, palatable, 
->non-gut-rotting vintage
->> > in each.
->> > 
->> > Any wine connoisseurs on the list?  Can you point me in 
->the right direction?
->> > 
->> > Thanks,
->> > 
->> > John
->> > 
->> > 
->> > 
->> > 
->> > ---
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->> > sent to listmaster at ale dot org.
->> > 
->> 
->> 
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->> sent to listmaster at ale dot org.
->