Continuing the same paragraph: “Applying a 10-year lag period […] and comparing versus prostate cancer screening […] but not breast cancer screening […] attenua

Continuing the same paragraph: “Applying a 10-year lag period […] and comparing versus prostate cancer screening […] but not breast cancer screening […] attenuated the risk increase.“ The “attenuated” in this case means “weakened the case for”. Or, in other words, we found a correlation without finding any causation.