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What does this mean exactly? How can you say something is (n)x more potent than something else in "explaining a disease"? I find this quote to be very confusin

What does this mean exactly? How can you say something is (n)x more potent than something else in "explaining a disease"? I find this quote to be very confusing.

latch 15y ago
Pretty sure he's talking about the correlation between increase intake in fructose to increase rates in diabetes. The popularized view is that high rates of diabetes (and various other health issues) are broadly caused by an increase in overall calories. This research breaks down caloric-intake into what those calories are and correlates these individual components to diabetes. That's how I understand it anyways.
tikhonj 15y ago
I haven't read the article and I have no experience in the relevant field, but I think it's a simple idea: P(disease|sugar) = 50 * P(disease|calories from sugar). That is, if all you know is that you've consumed n calories, we think you probably you have probability p of getting the disease; if you've consumed n calories' worth of sugar, we think you have probability 50p of getting the disease.
- monkeypizza 15y ago
  The problem is that you can't just multiply probabilities like that... How about: P(disease|calories) = P(disease|calories from sugar) + P(disease|calories not from sugar) So it might mean: P(disease|calories from sugar) =0.05 P(disease|calories not from sugar)=0.01
drucken 15y ago
The professor specifically meant the statistical inference, e.g. that accounting for all other factors that some factor X1 (in this case sugar) is Y times more correlated with Z observation (diabetes) than X2 (total calories). The main issue I would have would this video is the excessive focus on sugar the product and its direct sweetness associates rather than blood sugar levels which is far more directly relevant to diabetes and obesity in general. For example, common wheat bread and many sodas have a higher glycemic index than granulated table sugar! Therefore, they are converted into higher levels of blood sugar while at the same time being incredibly easy to over-consume (compared to trying to eat sugar directly). There is an excellent documentary created three years ago which explained in simple terms a huge amount to laymen about current scientific understanding and the unbelievable lengths to which industry and governments have gone to "encourage" a specific type of modern agriculture and associated food industry regardless of its health effects or consistent scientific evidence, especially in the US. It also covers why the Lipid Hypothesis is completely unvalidated, if not provably wrong. It is called "Fat Head (2009)" and it was available in full on Youtube until copyright notices removed it. It starts a little slowly and actually begins with a deep criticism of the logical fallacies in "Supersize Me" the movie, uses at one point slightly silly comic imagery, but by the second half there is excellent up-to-date food science and historical explanation as to why society is at is now. I am very grateful to another HN user that referred it to me about a year go. Anther superb and complementary programme was a Feb 2009 BBC Horizon episode called "Why Are Thin People Not Fat?" which is available on iPlayer (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00hbsk2 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00hbsk2). It is almost two programmes side-by-side. One sub-programme is a loose experiment to attempt to make a random group of young adults fat and why in some cases it effectively failed. The other sub-programme covers the summary results and science behind a deep, long and published study of a large number of obese people at a specialist clinic which profoundly contributed to scientific understanding of how obesity develops and what makes it so difficult to reverse beyond a certain point. I highly recommend both programmes. They will change they way you think, even if you have absolutely no interest in changing your food or lifestyle, and in some cases are surprisingly uncommon "common sense". But the kind of common sense only your grandparents and all those who were born before the 1970s would implicitly understand.
- oomkiller 15y ago
  I've seen "Fat Head," but I found it focused too much on bashing "Supersize Me" rather than explaining/advocating the right thing to do, and why. One book I've read recently that talks a lot about this is "Why We Get Fat" which is a sort of abridged version of "Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health" both by Taubes. Definitely check them out if you're interested. I've applied the reasoning in these books personally with great success, so there's my anecdotal evidence :)
  - drucken 15y ago
    I think oddly enough Taubes' earlier book is briefly mentioned in Fat Head :) Thanks for the recommendation!
  - boothead 15y ago
    I'd also recommend "The perfect health diet" [1]. Awful title but the book is superb, easily as good as Taubes, practically every paragraph has references to studies. [1] http://perfecthealthdiet.com/ http://perfecthealthdiet.com/
- lukifer 15y ago
  Fat Head has some excellent content, but it is far from a superb documentary.

What does this mean exactly? How can you say something is (n)x more potent than something else in "explaining a disease"? I find this quote to be very confusing.

latch 15y ago

Pretty sure he's talking about the correlation between increase intake in fructose to increase rates in diabetes. The popularized view is that high rates of diabetes (and various other health issues) are broadly caused by an increase in overall calories. This research breaks down caloric-intake into what those calories are and correlates these individual components to diabetes. That's how I understand it anyways.

tikhonj 15y ago

I haven't read the article and I have no experience in the relevant field, but I think it's a simple idea: P(disease|sugar) = 50 * P(disease|calories from sugar). That is, if all you know is that you've consumed n calories, we think you probably you have probability p of getting the disease; if you've consumed n calories' worth of sugar, we think you have probability 50p of getting the disease.

monkeypizza 15y ago
The problem is that you can't just multiply probabilities like that... How about: P(disease|calories) = P(disease|calories from sugar) + P(disease|calories not from sugar) So it might mean: P(disease|calories from sugar) =0.05 P(disease|calories not from sugar)=0.01

drucken 15y ago

The professor specifically meant the statistical inference, e.g. that accounting for all other factors that some factor X1 (in this case sugar) is Y times more correlated with Z observation (diabetes) than X2 (total calories). The main issue I would have would this video is the excessive focus on sugar the product and its direct sweetness associates rather than blood sugar levels which is far more directly relevant to diabetes and obesity in general. For example, common wheat bread and many sodas have a higher glycemic index than granulated table sugar! Therefore, they are converted into higher levels of blood sugar while at the same time being incredibly easy to over-consume (compared to trying to eat sugar directly). There is an excellent documentary created three years ago which explained in simple terms a huge amount to laymen about current scientific understanding and the unbelievable lengths to which industry and governments have gone to "encourage" a specific type of modern agriculture and associated food industry regardless of its health effects or consistent scientific evidence, especially in the US. It also covers why the Lipid Hypothesis is completely unvalidated, if not provably wrong. It is called "Fat Head (2009)" and it was available in full on Youtube until copyright notices removed it. It starts a little slowly and actually begins with a deep criticism of the logical fallacies in "Supersize Me" the movie, uses at one point slightly silly comic imagery, but by the second half there is excellent up-to-date food science and historical explanation as to why society is at is now. I am very grateful to another HN user that referred it to me about a year go. Anther superb and complementary programme was a Feb 2009 BBC Horizon episode called "Why Are Thin People Not Fat?" which is available on iPlayer (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00hbsk2 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00hbsk2). It is almost two programmes side-by-side. One sub-programme is a loose experiment to attempt to make a random group of young adults fat and why in some cases it effectively failed. The other sub-programme covers the summary results and science behind a deep, long and published study of a large number of obese people at a specialist clinic which profoundly contributed to scientific understanding of how obesity develops and what makes it so difficult to reverse beyond a certain point. I highly recommend both programmes. They will change they way you think, even if you have absolutely no interest in changing your food or lifestyle, and in some cases are surprisingly uncommon "common sense". But the kind of common sense only your grandparents and all those who were born before the 1970s would implicitly understand.

oomkiller 15y ago
I've seen "Fat Head," but I found it focused too much on bashing "Supersize Me" rather than explaining/advocating the right thing to do, and why. One book I've read recently that talks a lot about this is "Why We Get Fat" which is a sort of abridged version of "Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health" both by Taubes. Definitely check them out if you're interested. I've applied the reasoning in these books personally with great success, so there's my anecdotal evidence :)
- drucken 15y ago
  I think oddly enough Taubes' earlier book is briefly mentioned in Fat Head :) Thanks for the recommendation!
- boothead 15y ago
  I'd also recommend "The perfect health diet" [1]. Awful title but the book is superb, easily as good as Taubes, practically every paragraph has references to studies. [1] http://perfecthealthdiet.com/ http://perfecthealthdiet.com/
lukifer 15y ago
Fat Head has some excellent content, but it is far from a superb documentary.