News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Mediterranean diet may lower dementia risk by a quarter, study suggests.

Re:Mediterranean diet may lower dementia risk by a quarter, ... by pfortuny on Tuesday March 14, 2023 @08:02AM (#35150139)
Simply take a look at this table (the map is silly) and take your conclusion.

https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/alzheimer...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Mediterranean diet may lower dementia risk by a quarter, ... by Pinegulf on Tuesday March 14, 2023 @08:10AM (#35150201)
This may be very silly question, but does one die from Alzheimer's and dementia? Sure they make life miserable, but cause of death?

Edit: I did look it up. It seems that this is indeed the case.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Mediterranean diet may lower dementia risk by a quarter, ... by pfortuny on Tuesday March 14, 2023 @08:16AM (#35150258)
I really do not know. See

https://www.healthline.com/health/dementia/can-you-die-from-...

but I do not have a truly reliable source.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Mediterranean diet may lower dementia risk by a quarter, ... by adhesive_wombat on Tuesday March 14, 2023 @08:47AM (#35150604)
Bulgaria and Albania at completely opposite ends of the table with a 50-fold rate difference between them makes me go "hmm".

Or Singapore being right at the very bottom, 40 times less that Malaysia, and 20 times less than Japan.

It feels like this might be a table of countries that do and do not often include dementia as a cause of death.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Mediterranean diet may lower dementia risk by a quarter, ... by pfortuny on Tuesday March 14, 2023 @10:26AM (#35152042)
Well, looking at extremes is not the best way to analyze general data.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Mediterranean diet may lower dementia risk by a quarter, ... by adhesive_wombat on Tuesday March 14, 2023 @11:09AM (#35152744)
Do you genuinely think a 50-fold difference in dementia incidence sounds remotely plausible?

That would probably be the strongest incidence gradient signal in medical history. Dementia research would be laser-focussed on the Albania-North Macedonia-Bulgaria axis and the Singapore-Malaysia axis as they'd be near-ideal comparative populations.

If the data isn't compatible, the table doesn't mean much at all, since it has merged reporting bias with the actual incidence rates.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Mediterranean diet may lower dementia risk by a quarter, ... by dgrin91 on Tuesday March 14, 2023 @09:41AM (#35151342)
My conclusion is (1) god this map is terrible. My eyes, dear god. Why is the clear button blinking? But on a more serious note

(2) there isn't really a conclusion to be drawn from this map. Correlations are all over the place. Some western countries are high, but others are low. African countries are mostly high (because green is second highest for some reason). This map also does not correlate with age. I'm sure countries with a longer average lifespan have higher rates of Alzheimers/Dementia deaths. E.g. Russia has a lower average lifespan and a low rate of Alzheimers/Dementia deaths. That may be correlated.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Mediterranean diet may lower dementia risk by a quarter, ... by pfortuny on Tuesday March 14, 2023 @10:25AM (#35152027)
No, I only wanted you to look at the mediterranean nations BUT on the table, not the map.

Clearly much lower than

UK, US, Finland.

That is enough for me.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Mediterranean diet may lower dementia risk by a quarter, ... by dgrin91 on Wednesday March 15, 2023 @12:14PM (#35170567)
Italy, Greece & Egype are low, but basically al others are high? Spain, France, Turkey, Libya, Morroco? I'm not really sure what is it that is enough for you.
[ Parent | on HN ]