3 ms·

> including a 29% reduction in sickness absence among participants who took cold showers. Reminds me of back when they claimed wine was good for your health T

by gxs 2y ago

> including a 29% reduction in sickness absence among participants who took cold showers. Reminds me of back when they claimed wine was good for your health Turned out to be people affluent enough to drink wine regularly also had regular access to healthcare and were thus likelier to be healthy (for some definition of healthy) Similarly here, I’m tempted to believe that anyone who does CWI regularly probably lives a healthier lifestyle in general and that CWI is just one element of a robust health routine. It’d be pretty hard to tease out all this in a study like this. I think in situations like this the approach I’d take is: See what the science says in terms of theoretical benefits, get some anecdotes from trusted sources, and when the stakes are low like this, give it a shot myself. That said, noted that some of the other positives seemed to be a bit more directly measurable/observable, eg stress reduced after 12 hrs and things like that.

tofof 2y ago
I have no idea why you're being downvoted; https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1002476 https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371%2F... is one of many good studies that show that the 'French Paradox' is little more than socioeconomic effect. The association with lower rates of cardiovascular disease among moderate drinkers shows an effect modification of 1.32 when comparing low vs mid socioeconomic position (SEP), 1.36 for mid vs high, and then unsurprisingly 1.63 for low vs high. This strongly suggests that socioeconomic position has a direct and confounding effect on the outcome measure (cardiovascular disease mortality). The alternative is that socioeconomic position modifies the effect of the treatment (moderate alcohol consumption) itself. This would be a sensible interpretation of an effect modification of a drug administered in the presence/absence of, say, grapefruit juice or DMSO, but severe mental gymnastics would be required to argue for the existence of a mechanism through which socioeconomic class could directly mediate the biochemical effects of alcohol on the body's cardiovascular system.
- KennyBlanken 2y ago
  They're being downvoted likely because one study which missed a factor does not make personal anecdotes more valuable, or say anything about the reliability of the scientific method. The irony of using one study...yeesh. Also: science is iterative, people. Nobody in the scientific community looks at one study in a vacuum. Follow-up studies seek to confirm, efine, build off of, or come up with a different theory. Only internet commenters who pride themselves in being "skeptics" do this - because they think skeptics are the smartest people, failing to understand that uneducated skepticism has little value. When they hear the study had some flaw, they shout "AHA! RESEARCH IS BUNK!" and assume everything that came out of it was useless. Or, more commonly, they don't see some obvious potential flaw not specifically spelled out as being addressed just like a math paper wouldn't explain basic calculus - and assume they've found some flaw that somehow multiple people who have studied in their field for years - missed. It's like looking at a bowl of cake batter and crying out "that's soup, you're incompetent!" to a chef who has a Michelin star, because it doesn't look or taste like a cake.
  - gxs 2y ago
    Wow you read way way too much into my comment Sorry it got you bent out of shape
throw0101d 2y ago
> Turned out to be people affluent enough to drink wine regularly also had regular access to healthcare and were thus likelier to be healthy (for some definition of healthy) I'm curious to know about if/how much the positive effects of coffee are about people drinking it in social situations (at a café or after dinner with friends/family).
bbstats 2y ago
Actually socioeconomic status was controlled for. What was not controlled for was pre-existing conditions that might make people have 0 drinks like previous alcoholism, medical conditions where you can't drink, etc.
arisAlexis 2y ago
Here is a meta study debunking the myth that wine good for you was a myth. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10507274/#:~:text=The%20study%20findings%20reveal%20no,well%20as%20cancer%20in%20general. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10507274/#:~:text=T...

by gxs 2y ago

tofof 2y ago

I have no idea why you're being downvoted; https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1002476 https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371%2F... is one of many good studies that show that the 'French Paradox' is little more than socioeconomic effect. The association with lower rates of cardiovascular disease among moderate drinkers shows an effect modification of 1.32 when comparing low vs mid socioeconomic position (SEP), 1.36 for mid vs high, and then unsurprisingly 1.63 for low vs high. This strongly suggests that socioeconomic position has a direct and confounding effect on the outcome measure (cardiovascular disease mortality). The alternative is that socioeconomic position modifies the effect of the treatment (moderate alcohol consumption) itself. This would be a sensible interpretation of an effect modification of a drug administered in the presence/absence of, say, grapefruit juice or DMSO, but severe mental gymnastics would be required to argue for the existence of a mechanism through which socioeconomic class could directly mediate the biochemical effects of alcohol on the body's cardiovascular system.

KennyBlanken 2y ago
They're being downvoted likely because one study which missed a factor does not make personal anecdotes more valuable, or say anything about the reliability of the scientific method. The irony of using one study...yeesh. Also: science is iterative, people. Nobody in the scientific community looks at one study in a vacuum. Follow-up studies seek to confirm, efine, build off of, or come up with a different theory. Only internet commenters who pride themselves in being "skeptics" do this - because they think skeptics are the smartest people, failing to understand that uneducated skepticism has little value. When they hear the study had some flaw, they shout "AHA! RESEARCH IS BUNK!" and assume everything that came out of it was useless. Or, more commonly, they don't see some obvious potential flaw not specifically spelled out as being addressed just like a math paper wouldn't explain basic calculus - and assume they've found some flaw that somehow multiple people who have studied in their field for years - missed. It's like looking at a bowl of cake batter and crying out "that's soup, you're incompetent!" to a chef who has a Michelin star, because it doesn't look or taste like a cake.
- gxs 2y ago
  Wow you read way way too much into my comment Sorry it got you bent out of shape

throw0101d 2y ago

> Turned out to be people affluent enough to drink wine regularly also had regular access to healthcare and were thus likelier to be healthy (for some definition of healthy) I'm curious to know about if/how much the positive effects of coffee are about people drinking it in social situations (at a café or after dinner with friends/family).

bbstats 2y ago

Actually socioeconomic status was controlled for. What was not controlled for was pre-existing conditions that might make people have 0 drinks like previous alcoholism, medical conditions where you can't drink, etc.

arisAlexis 2y ago

Here is a meta study debunking the myth that wine good for you was a myth. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10507274/#:~:text=The%20study%20findings%20reveal%20no,well%20as%20cancer%20in%20general. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10507274/#:~:text=T...