Omega-3s in the blood may boost risk of aggressive prostate cancer

Re:Omega-3s in the blood may boost risk of aggressive prosta... by DarkShikari on Saturday April 30, 2011 @08:07PM (#2501927)

Analyzing data from a nationwide study involving more than 3,400 men, researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center found that men with the highest blood percentages of docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA, an inflammation-lowering omega-3 fatty acid commonly found in fatty fish, have two-and-a-half-times the risk of developing aggressive, high-grade prostate cancer compared to men with the lowest DHA levels.

Correlation isn't causation. There are literally a billion possible factors that could be responsible besides a direct relationship. Of course, the same applies to any research demonstrating the efficacy of Omega-3s, too.

This is the problem with a lot of nutrition studies: a huge number of completely false associations were and still are being invented because of an inability to control for important factors. For example, the "fiber theory" of health has turned out to be almost completely false: it appeared to be "healthy" because eating fiber meant eating fewer (digested) carbohydrates. The fiber itself did almost nothing for health.

It gets worse when massive chains of correlations are assumed to be causes. A is correlated with B, B is correlated with C, C is correlated with D, therefore A causes D. The whole mess of saturated fats, cholesterol levels, heart attacks, and heart disease is a case of this.

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Re:Omega-3s in the blood may boost risk of aggressive prosta... by aksbhat on Saturday April 30, 2011 @08:52PM (#2501995)

link to the paper: http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/04/19/aje.k...

I guess that a paper won't get accepted in Am. J. Epidemiol without proper consideration of such correlation.

The studies generally try to control for homophilly, contagion and confounding etc.

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