| ▲ | djoldman 6 hours ago |
| Studies like this always seem to cite stats in a way that's pretty inaccessible to me. This is more clear to me: * 217,122 participants whose data was extracted from the UK biobank database * Out of those 217,122, 325 got early onset dementia over an average of 8.3 years * The vast percentage of data came from exactly one blood draw per person between 2006 and 2010 at the beginning of the biobank study Omega-3 Blood | Hazard Risk | Rate of Incidence | Percent Incidence
Level Quintiles | | Over 8.3 Years | Over 8.3 Years
-------------------|------------------|--------------------|------------------
Q1 (Lowest 20%) | 1.0 | 193 in 100,000 | 0.193%
Q4 (High) | 0.62 | 120 in 100,000 | 0.120%
Q5 (Highest 20%) | 0.60 | 116 in 100,000 | 0.116%
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| ▲ | tfirst 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| The most interesting finding is that the non-DHA effect is much stronger than the DHA effect. This doesn't align with the mechanistic explanation. Either this this is a novel and interesting result, or it's more evidence that we're just measuring wealth and health consciousness. Observational studies like these are useful for guiding future research, but, on their own, they're essentially useless for informing lifestyle changes. |
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| ▲ | mobilejdral 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | The non-DHA omega-3 EPA are good at preventing perivascular fibrosis and thus a better glymphatic system for the removal of beta-amyloid proteins. EPA also helps produce melatonin which kick off sleep and this whole process. Natto-serrazime is probably an excellent complement as it is on the other side and is a dissolver. (Noteworthy: Pterostilbene + Glucosamine similar to EPA reduces fibrosis) The interesting connection is how this is needed when we are older, but not younger. When younger ERa activates more which does this all on its own. This is the connection to why 2/3 of alzheimer's are post-menopausal women and why HRT is important. Edit: and to tie this to APOE as it is the gene most associated with Alzheimer's. e4/e4 requires more choline so someone with e4/e4 is more likely to be choline deficient. EPA/DHA usually attach to Phosphatidylcholine (PC) when in the blood/brain. PEMT is a gene controlled by ERa to make choline, but from the above less ERa activation and we make less PEMT so less choline and less PC. Choline is the precursor to Acetylcholine (primary neurotransmitter for memory and focus and essential for REM sleep). This is why Choline is known to help with Alzheimer's. |
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| ▲ | morgengold 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| So you can reduce your dementia incidence risk from Q1 -> Q5 by a whopping 0.08%-points.
But in media you surely will read about a 40% reduction. *edited: %-points instead of % |
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| ▲ | mrob 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The reduction in risk is 0.08 percentage points, not 0.08 percent. The "%" symbol always means "percent", not "percentage points". The 0.08 percentage point reduction is a 40% reduction. EDIT: don't assume the causality | | | |
| ▲ | KempyKolibri 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Sure, because both are true (although that 0.08% is only over 8 years of known omega 3 consumption - as timescales increase the absolute risk moves towards the relative risk). That 0.08% reduction would mean approximately 28,000 fewer EOD cases - not to be sniffed at! | |
| ▲ | ricardobeat 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The 40% (66%?) is the number that matters. Same way you wearing a helmet reduces your changes of brain damage in a motorcycle accident by 90%, yet you’re not on a motorcycle most of the time. | |
| ▲ | llm_nerd 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | This is talking about early onset, which is a particularly terrifying outcome. And yes, 1 in 1000 for a horrible outcome sounds much better than 2 in 1000, doesn't it? And to be clear, many things that people worry about is less likely than that. Homicides (over an 8 year period about about 0.04 per 1000 people), terrorism (vanishingly small), and on and on. None of this means that people should stock up on omega-3s, and as likely the study is actually finding a correlation with something else (e.g. wealthier people enjoy more fish rich diets and are less exposed to toxins, or something else), but halving something terrifying that isn't that uncommon is legitimately newsworthy. |
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| ▲ | 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
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| ▲ | cyanydeez 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| also keep in mind, P hacking came about as a means to try to prove racial science. |
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| ▲ | getnormality 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| This could significantly underestimate the real impact. A single point measurement is perhaps a pretty noisy measure of long term average. If we had lifetime averages, the quintiles would be more purely differentiated by the variable of interest, and the risk would be as well. |
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| ▲ | kingkawn 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Or overestimate? | | |
| ▲ | tfirst 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Holding all else equal, noisier estimates bias us towards the null. This is attenuation bias. However, the estimates are still probably overestimated. Confounding, p-hacking, publication bias, all move us towards larger estimates. | | |
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