3 ms·

This way of interpreting the data is misleading. For population, it still could mean nothing. People are not living in an isolated environment just eating red m

This way of interpreting the data is misleading. For population, it still could mean nothing. People are not living in an isolated environment just eating red meat or processed food and do nothing else. At the population level there are way more factors need to be considered. You can't even imagine how many things in the society will be impacted if people stop eating red meat or the processed food. CVD will be the least of concern at the population level. So, yes, this tiny effect size means nothing. Moreover, this tiny effect size could be much smaller than noises in the data.

zamfi 7y ago
It could mean nothing, or it could not. But a small effect size alone doesn’t tell you this, and you are correct that there are many factors — that is exactly the point of this study, to tease apart which other factors are causative. Of course, this study says nothing about what happens if you try to change behavior, that seems like an entirely unrelated point. Taken together, I’m not sure how you can be so confident that a small effect size therefore means nothing.