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I'm not sure what your link does. Are you accusing me of lying? My computer says that FAS article comes from potsdam state.
This thread is going to get closed if we continue on about drinking during pregnancy much longer. I should have known this would be a loaded topic, like the smoking threads that get going on P&OC. I've learned to avoid them; the smokers have all the answers. I should have known the drinkers would too.
I'll clear this stuff out eventually. I thought it could be interest as it's on looking at studies. I don't understand what's loaded about this subject. Nor can I understand why this is annoying, what's there to get annoyed. I am a bit annoyed at the comment that those disagree with you are disagreeing because they're drinkers. Maybe some think you're logic is off? I'm more interested in statistics for statistics sake than this subject in particular, that's what I was pointing out.
Here's why.
Look at all your quotes in the last post. They say about the same thing. There is no known safe limit. But how do you determine the safe limit? A study looking at pregnant women who drank at low levels (say one drink a day, in the sense of every day rather than a binge drink a week) might be unable to find a statistically significant difference in healthy babies. Does that mean there's no risk at that level? Not necessarily. Just that it's smaller than a certain level, to the level the study was unable to pick up, as in no demonstrable harm was found. No alcohol would of course be even safer.
The bolded is Malloric's quote. It doesn't contradict your quoted links.
The usual habit in statistics is to have the null that there is no difference with the added drug/chemical/etc. That null choice may not best in risky situations (since the burden of proof in the null = no difference is to prove that it's unsafe instead of proving it's safe).
I'll clear this stuff out eventually. I thought it could be interest as it's on looking at studies. I don't understand what's loaded about this subject. Nor can I understand why this is annoying, what's there to get annoyed. I am a bit annoyed at the comment that those disagree with you are disagreeing because they're drinkers. Maybe some think you're logic is off? I'm more interested in statistics for statistics sake than this subject in particular, that's what I was pointing out.
Here's why.
Look at all your quotes in the last post. They say about the same thing. There is no known safe limit. But how do you determine the safe limit? A study looking at pregnant women who drank at low levels (say one drink a day, in the sense of every day rather than a binge drink a week) might be unable to find a statistically significant difference in healthy babies. Does that mean there's no risk at that level? Not necessarily. Just that it's smaller than a certain level, to the level the study was unable to pick up, as in no demonstrable harm was found. No alcohol would of course be even safer.
The bolded is Malloric's quote. It doesn't contradict your quoted links.
The usual habit in statistics is to have the null that there is no difference with the added drug/chemical/etc. That null choice may not best in risky situations (since the burden of proof in the null = no difference is to prove that it's unsafe instead of proving it's safe).
I don't know why I have to defend myself, when I have 40 years of research on FAS and the health authorities of the US, Canada, Australia and numerous European countries on my side, while you guys have, well, what? You have acknowledged nei, that you're not really familiar with this issue, but apparently you've become expert in a couple of hours. Malloric won't tell me what his expertise on this issue is. And just because ONE study showed no demostrable harm, that doesn't mean there is no harm. His study from Potsdam looked at a series of women. It claims there was not one case of FAS, which I find a little dubious myself, considering they looked at 400,000 women who drank, as prevalence is higher than that among ALL women. http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publicatio...-3/159-167.htm In any event, the woman from the U of WA was looking at diagnosed cases and found that 1 in 14 occurred in women who drank as little as one drink a day (the "no drinking" level assumed by some).
This isn't an issue of disagreeing as in, "which is a prettier color, blue or red". It isn't an issue of "I think this, and I'm as entitled to my opinion as you are". This is an issue of settled science. No, MY logic isn't off, someone else's is!
And why do I think it's the drinkers who disagree? Well, only a drinker would think one drink a day is the equivalent of "no drinking". One of Emily Oster's beefs is that she thinks doctors tell women no drinking b/c if they said "drink moderately" they'd drink themselves silly. Apparently, there's some truth behind that! And before you go off in a huff, think about how many times people fudge on their height, their weight, their exercise habits, etc when talking with their doctors re: same. Health care providers know people, uh, exaggerate, a little, in whatever direction they think best.
Last edited by Katarina Witt; 05-27-2014 at 06:27 PM..
I don't know why I have to defend myself, when I have 40 years of research on FAS and the health authorities of the US, Canada, Australia and numerous European countries on my side, while you guys have, well, what? You have acknowledged nei, that you're not really familiar with this issue, but apparently you've become expert in a couple of hours. Malloric won't tell me what his expertise on this issue is.
You're not responding to my argument. I could repeat it, but I suggest you reread it.
Edit: Re-summary. What I said was that "no demonstrable harm" and "no safe level" are not contradictory. Maybe the "no demonstrable harm" part is wrong, that's not really the point. The point is the above two don't contradict because of the nature of statistical tests. I thought I made a clear explanation, I'm not sure why you responded as if I said something else. I'm puzzled.
I did NOT say the health authorities are wrong. I'm making a statistic testing point not really a public health point. Nor am I saying much about settled science, it's not an issue of settled science.
In and among the rest, it suggests that 0.50 ounces of alcohol per day (basically 1 standard drink) is the threshold for functional defect "when the alcohol was consumed in a bingelike fashion. The functional deficits were not observed, however, in the offspring of women who reported drinking frequently but not in a bingelike pattern."
Not that I'm suggesting any pregnant women take up drinking. But if you're going to do it, make it a true one drink per day, not teetotaling all week and then guzzling 7 drinks on Saturday.
As for the original correlation/causation thing with driving and obesity, in 2011 there were two datasets which were very close approximations to a straight line up to 2006. As I said before, all such datasets are well-correlated. So how do you show there is causation and not merely correlation? Ideally, you perturb one dataset and see if it is reflected in the other, but obviously that's not practical here. Fortunately, in this case we had a natural experiment -- after 2006, the supposed "cause" dataset took a dip downward. That predicted a dip downward in the "effect" dataset. That dip didn't happen, thus the effect was refuted.
In and among the rest, it suggests that 0.50 ounces of alcohol per day (basically 1 standard drink) is the threshold for functional defect "when the alcohol was consumed in a bingelike fashion. The functional deficits were not observed, however, in the offspring of women who reported drinking frequently but not in a bingelike pattern."
Not that I'm suggesting any pregnant women take up drinking. But if you're going to do it, make it a true one drink per day, not teetotaling all week and then guzzling 7 drinks on Saturday.
As for the original correlation/causation thing with driving and obesity, in 2011 there were two datasets which were very close approximations to a straight line up to 2006. As I said before, all such datasets are well-correlated. So how do you show there is causation and not merely correlation? Ideally, you perturb one dataset and see if it is reflected in the other, but obviously that's not practical here. Fortunately, in this case we had a natural experiment -- after 2006, the supposed "cause" dataset took a dip downward. That predicted a dip downward in the "effect" dataset. That dip didn't happen, thus the effect was refuted.
No, no, no and no! Of course you shouldn't binge drink. But neither should you drink every day, or really, at all during pregnancy. NO SAFE LEVEL OF ALCOHOL INTAKE DURING PREGNANCY HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED!
You're not responding to my argument. I could repeat it, but I suggest you reread it.
I did NOT say the health authorities are wrong. I'm making a statistic testing point not really a public health point. Nor am I saying much about settled science, it's not an issue of settled science.
It IS an issue of settled science. NO SAFE LEVEL OF ALCOHOL INTAKE DURING PREGNANCY HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED! That is settled.
And I'm not going to argue this all night. You argue with every freaking data point I present. THERE IS NO SAFE LEVEL OF ALCOHOL INTAKE DURING PREGNANCY! You don't get a "do-over" with your kid's brain, either, if you don't believe that.
It IS an issue of settled science. NO SAFE LEVEL OF ALCOHOL INTAKE DURING PREGNANCY HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED! That is settled.
And I'm not going to argue this all night. THERE IS NO SAFE LEVEL OF ALCOHOL INTAKE DURING PREGNANCY!
You are NOT responding to my post. Can you try to understand what my point is? Reread then reply. It is NOT a matter of settled science, because I am NOT arguing the science. I did not make a statement about the safe level of alcohol actually is in that post, why are you even responding about that?
To drive(US type commutes) and watch TV US style not only it is causing obesity it encourages it. People don't move much when driving, and don't move much when watching TV either. To spend money even trying to "study" this is dumb! Of course both lead to obesity. That just common sense.
The other problem is the crap that is put into our foods, and nobody seems to want to hold anyone accountable for destroying our health en-masse! My hope is that young people smarten up faster and start asking questions and stop allowing these companies to destroy our health with their horrible food.
Or you could just look at correlation. Most college students walk or bicycle places, at least a far far greater proportion than the general population walk places. College students have a lower rate of obesity than the general populace. Therefore, walking/cycling places would seem to have a very high causal relationship to not being obese. Of course, that ignores some rather important things. College students tend to be more affluent than the population at large and socioeconomics is correlated to obesity, more educated people tend to be less obese than less educated people, younger people tend to be less obese than older people.
I was suggesting looking at colleges where students walk more compared ones that don't (mainly commuter colleges). But you'd have to control for demographics.
Quote:
It's actually not that difficult to at least attempt to infer causal relationships rather than just correlations. There's a whole field that does just that. It's called statistics. That's what regression analysis attempts to do. You're still, of course, inferring a causal relationship by calculating the effect from each of several variables. It isn't perfect by any means. If you miss a variable or have bad data, your results are off. Still, whenever you see a study that does not even attempt to do regression analysis, you know it's basically either complete and utter garbage or just never was intended to look at causation. Not every study is attempting to show causation.
And you'd need to regression to see and driving-obesity connection. Or perhaps try to control for demographics, but regression is supposed to adjust for that. If going by place, I think you'd need to use car-unfriendly places, otherwise anyone lazy who doesn't wish to walk will except some poor people.
In and among the rest, it suggests that 0.50 ounces of alcohol per day (basically 1 standard drink) is the threshold for functional defect "when the alcohol was consumed in a bingelike fashion. The functional deficits were not observed, however, in the offspring of women who reported drinking frequently but not in a bingelike pattern."
Not that I'm suggesting any pregnant women take up drinking. But if you're going to do it, make it a true one drink per day, not teetotaling all week and then guzzling 7 drinks on Saturday.
As for the original correlation/causation thing with driving and obesity, in 2011 there were two datasets which were very close approximations to a straight line up to 2006. As I said before, all such datasets are well-correlated. So how do you show there is causation and not merely correlation? Ideally, you perturb one dataset and see if it is reflected in the other, but obviously that's not practical here. Fortunately, in this case we had a natural experiment -- after 2006, the supposed "cause" dataset took a dip downward. That predicted a dip downward in the "effect" dataset. That dip didn't happen, thus the effect was refuted.
Of course, the caveat:
Because no threshold for alcohol's detrimental effects on the developing fetal brain has been established, women should cease to consume alcohol immediately upon learning that they are pregnant.
And no, the study didn't just contradict itself. Data suggests isn't the same thing as a safe threshold level, if one even exists. Even the UK which does have a suggest limit acknowledges there is no safe threshold level and clearly states none is best, however if you choose to don't exceed this amount.
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