Melbourne: A study published last month in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition made headlines around the world. In several findings related to alcoholic beverages and covid, it was reported that drinking red wine reduces the risk of exposure to covid. Before you start calling people out to celebrate, it’s important to know that there are many reasons to be cautious about these findings. This paper is a great example of why many studies related to diet and health are unreliable and need careful interpretation.
Many of these studies have their limitations in the way they are conducted, which is why we often see one food being cited as good for us one day and refuted by another study the next. . This contradiction in the study’s findings is a source of continuing frustration in the field of nutrition science. Let’s explore some of the reasons why these studies can be misleading. What were some of the findings? Several conclusions emerged from this study.
Perhaps the most interesting thing from the media perspective was that drinking one to four glasses of red wine a week reduced the risk of getting COVID by about 10%. Drinking five or more glasses of red wine a week reduced risk by 17%. Although drinking white wine and champagne also appeared to be protective, they had a lesser effect than red wine. In contrast, drinking beer was found to increase the risk of getting covid by 7–28%. It was difficult to identify clear patterns with few other findings. For example, while drinking alcohol increases the risk of getting COVID, drinking fortified wine only in small doses appears to be protective.
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Similarly, drinking more frequently was associated with a lower risk of getting COVID, drinking more than the UK guidelines for alcohol consumption was associated with an increased risk of exposure to COVID. Let’s delve deeper into red wine-related findings to explore some of the reasons why there should be skepticism about the results of these types of studies. The first and most obvious reason to be cautious when interpreting this study is that correlation does not equal causation.
You hear this phrase all the time, but that’s because it’s so important to distinguish between two variables that are intertwined with, and cause each other. This analysis was accomplished with data collected from a large longitudinal study, which is a study in which you decide participants and track them over time to collect information about their behavior and health. Although this study, the UK Biobank cohort, had an impressive number of participants, the analysis only included looking for an association between alcohol consumption patterns and a diagnosis of COVID.
As this was an observational study where data was collected and analyzed from people leading their normal lives, one can say with confidence that drinking red wine was associated with a lower chance of being diagnosed with COVID. No one can say that drinking red wine actually had a lower risk of contracting the disease in this group. It is entirely possible that this association reflects other differences between those who drink red wine and those who develop COVID.
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This phenomenon is called “confounding”, and it is very difficult to completely remove the effect of delusion in observational studies to know exactly what is happening. Although the researchers attempted to statistically adjust the results in this study to remove some obvious contradictions – such as age, sex and education level – this type of adjustment is not accurate. There is also no guarantee that there were no other sources of confusion in the study that were not considered. The data on drinking is unreliable
There are two major limitations in the collected data concerning the drinking patterns in this study. The first is that gathering information about what people eat and drink is extremely unreliable. And the bigger problem is that the extent of this misreporting varies greatly between people, making it very difficult to fix. A second major limitation was that the researchers collected data on drinking patterns at the beginning of this longitudinal study and used the same data throughout their analysis over the years, assuming that people’s drinking patterns were similar throughout the period. Were.
Clearly a person’s drinking patterns can change significantly over the years, so this can potentially be a great deal of error. So, when it comes to drinking alcohol, always remember that you should not drink it considering any purported health benefits related to covid or any other disease. You should drink in moderation if you enjoy it, and be clear why you are drinking. (agency)