The study used telomere shortening as a proxy for biological age Basically, shorter telomeres means 'older', because shorter telomeres are associated with aging
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(Telomeres are part of our DNA that stop it from breaking when it replicates. You have less of them as you grow older, which some people think is part of the reason that we get less healthy as we age)pic.twitter.com/6iLjGFhzIh
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FIRST PROBLEM: telomeres are NOT age. They are ASSOCIATED with age In other words, you can't predict much from shorter telomeres. It might just be that they get shorter as we age naturally, rather than causing our aging processes per sepic.twitter.com/9gn5y4Zy1e
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So making any claims about adding years to your life from this research is baldly wrong. The study made some weird extrapolations from shortened telomeres to 4.5 years of aging, but that's not very realistic
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SECOND PROBLEM: The analysis was cross-sectional Basically, the researcher (yes just one) took a sample of people at one point in time and looked at whether full-fat milk was associated with telomere issues
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This is a problem, because we haven't measured people over time All we can say is that, in the NHANES sample from 1999-2002, people with shorter telomeres drank more full fat milkpic.twitter.com/p5ZowpcOoI
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Which brings us to the THIRD PROBLEM: this study was observational in nature All the analysis did was look at the association between full/low fat milks and telomere length
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The study didn't even control for many covariates. It's not hard to see how your telomere length (a complex measure of DNA) could be influenced by things that this study failed to control for
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For example, it might be that people with sick parents are more likely to drink full fat milk. Having sick parents is associated with telomere issues, so instead of the milk it's the sick parents' fault
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Replying to @GidMK
Or even more likely, that the more health conscious you are the more likely you are to drink low fat milk. More health conscious = a whole lot of other associated factors (more exercise, more vegetables in diet etc etc ).
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Yes that's a much better example thanks
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Replying to @GidMK
I recall hearing something about cell aging and exercise and a quick Google reveals that there is an association.
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