“Someone stop that guy before he hurts somebody!”

What would we do without health studies, which provide a steady source of evidence that no matter what you do in pursuit of good health and fitness, it’s wrong?

Here’ what I’ve learned in just two days of reports from the health industry:

Multivitamins will kill you.

Vitamin E will give you prostate cancer.

Apples are bad for your teeth, and fruit juice is worse than pop.

Exercise and fish give you menopause.

All of medicine and health studies depend upon correlation, not causation. It’s about the same as saying 95% of doctors are smart. Therefore, does being a doctor cause you to be smart?

As our world gets more and more data-fied, we’re going to find more and more correlations. But we have no mathematical way to understand and determine causation. So, until those smart doctors invent a new way to study data, we’re going to be stuck with studies like this that are almost completely meaningless to individuals. But then again, these things sure are linkbait and drive ad revenue don’t they?

(via Good health will kill you, studies find | National Post)