scorcher59
Member
I've always found that so odd, "a new study suggests..." and never put any source, you can put anything in the news with the headline "a study proved that..." and people eat it up
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Obesity link to brain structure in explosive medical study
- Thread starter shinobi602
- Start date
- Status
I've always found that so odd, "a new study suggests..." and never put any source, you can put anything in the news with the headline "a study proved that..." and people eat it up
Cheers, looking forward to read it tomorrow.
Randolph Freelander
Member
Hmmm.
I believe this news.
I believe this news.
entremet
Member
Adipose tissue is hormonal active as well. It's not just innocuous cells.
Hari Seldon
Member
It might be a representative sample of people from Baltimore willing to have someone experiment on their brains for a small fee... possibly yes. So if you are from Baltimore and you will let someone poke around your brain for a nominal fee this might apply to you. Assuming every other part of their sampling was absolutely perfect.
Resident_UA
Member
As statistician you have to keep in mind that you are splitting that group into 2. There's no way you can have a study with 16 people in each group taken seriously. If something ends up statistically significant in that case the difference has to be large, but that also means that there could be 100 other things you are not taking into account when doing this analysis (i.e. location, income level, etc.)
We shall see. I've been through countless reviews prior to publication and reviewers, no matter the publication, is super conservative when it comes to the statistical methodology. Especially when it comes to unrepresentative samples.
Even if they are linked, that doesn't mean there's a direct causal relationship.
There is also a correlation between obesity and poverty. One could just as easily argue that poverty is the cause of obesity, and that people with lower intelligence are more likely to be poor.
umop_3pisdn
Member
I think disrupted reward pathways are a common feature across all kinds of maladaptive behaviour.
Resident_UA
Member
Yup. Much more likely scenario.
or both
The Telegraph writers are what are less intelligent here. What a terrible click bait title.
I love how people that don't know anything about how research is done like to chime in as if they know what they're talking about. This isn't a poll, this isn't representative of the entire population, this is a link established with the participants and the conclusion is that it would be a common pattern.
32 people? LOL! There are high school projects that are more scientific than this
I love how people that don't know anything about how research is done like to chime in as if they know what they're talking about. This isn't a poll, this isn't representative of the entire population, this is a link established with the participants and the conclusion is that it would be a common pattern.
It's not a statistical study.
They study didn't set out to establish a causal relation between the two. Most likely future research will be looking into that.
umop_3pisdn
Member
I do think that insulin insensitivity might not be a good thing for brain function (I think there's some prospective theories on whether Alzheimer's might be a 'Type 3 Diabetes') but idk how much you can really infer from that.
God Dayumm
Banned
It depends on the standard deviation. A small sample can still be very conclusive if the results align with the hypothesis. But to be honest, I don't think that applies here. I'm not familiar with medical investigation, but it doesn't strike me as usually having the mathematical rigor to get away with this sort of sampling. Seeing that one group has less white matter than the other is one thing, but predicting the exact difference with a mathematical formula and corroborating the results in a few samples is another.
The only reason people find this study interesting is because of the authors' theory about causality, though.
That's been a vague implication about certain types of obesity for a long time. It wouldn't be a surprising conclusion.
That said, sample size is fairly small to make anything close to definitive statements as of now.
Resident_UA
Member
What the fuck are you talking about? I know a lot about research. Sure you don't need hundreds of people to do this kind of research, but with 32 you literally cannot account for every possible factor that could impact this research. And it definitely isn't strong enough to make the conclusive statements that the article makes. Basically it means nothing, not news worthy, but potentially other scientists could further look into it.
Hari Seldon
Member
This isn't research, this is making claims based on the magic 8-ball.
Edit: This study is interesting and the measurement methodology is good, and if they expanded this it would be very interesting. My problem is calling it a study or drawing any conclusions. This is really like a pre-study. Or preliminary non-scientific results. The problem is the average person doesn't know at what level they should believe this. They assume that all studies are created equal, and see study after study (really pre-study after pre-study) reported in the news that all contradict each other and then they conclude that scientists are a bunch of dumb-asses and believe that coal power is indeed clean.
highrider
Banned
Hey, as a Maryland native I take offense to this sir! * takes out dueling glove *
What conclusive statements? Telegraph having no idea how to write doesn't have anything to do with it. Right in the abstract.
These findings: (1)offer a biologically plausible explanation for reduced cognitive performance, greater impulsivity, and altered reward processing among overweight individuals, and (2) suggests neurobiological mechanisms (i.e. Altered functional and structural brain connectivity) that may affect overweight individuals ability to establish and mantain healthy lifestyle choices.
I'm sure you know research, but this is an exploratory investigation. It doesn't carry much weight but the newspaper picked it up cause they could make an inflammatory title.
please stop embarrasing yourself.
Mr. Giggles
Member
Wait....
So I'm fat AND stupid?!!
Well then.
So I'm fat AND stupid?!!
Well then.
Raven117
Gold Member
I laughed out loud. Great first post.
As a person who just got published with an fMRI paper, 32 is a ridiculously high number. The top papers in the field often have like 3-9 subjects. Brains vary so much that showing it in even 2 people is a strong result.
Already Torn
Banned
All of that makes a lot of sense to me.
Resident_UA
Member
Just stop pretending like there's any sort of debate about disclaimers or whatever else you are trying to imply. The point everyone is making is that the article was selling BS, not that these "exploratory investigations" have no right to exist. Hence my point that high school science experiments are more scientific than this. Doesn't meant that we don't need to do them, but they are not worthy of becoming a news article.
EDIT: Reminds me of this segment: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Scientific Studies (HBO)
Make up your mind, is it the article that's bs? (Then the people would need to read the investigation and not shitty newspaper before calling them out). Or that this investigation doesn't have any merit and the the methodology employed is badly constructed? Cause that's a losing battle and I wouldn't want to die in that hill if I were you.
Resident_UA
Member
Sample size is very relevant here when talking specifically about the article. Because with sample size of 32 (including control group) you need a miracle to make this statement: "Obesity link to brain structure in explosive medical study".
I don't see many comments here criticizing scientists here. Do you?
CrimsonCrescendo
Banned
Reading the first few paragraphs of the actual journal (thank you Cyan) tells you a completely different story; it says nothing about obese people being dumb, it talks about how obesity leads to brain degeneration in adults (early onset dementia, progressively poorer impulse control, and a generally changing brain structure) and screws up brain development in adolescents. Which really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. This is just yet more evidence that obesity affects more than your heart and actively fucks with your brain.
So yes, if you have been obese for 30 years, your brain will be much more unhealthy than someone who wasn't obese. Shocking. But of course, that headline won't drive clicks.
Edit: this is not to say that it's your fault for being obese. The human body didn't evolve to factor 24/7 access to food. Things like food deserts also exist and actually healthy food can be too expensive for poorer people. There are also numerous conditions which make it difficult to lose or maintain weight.
This needs to become an important national discussion.
So yes, if you have been obese for 30 years, your brain will be much more unhealthy than someone who wasn't obese. Shocking. But of course, that headline won't drive clicks.
Edit: this is not to say that it's your fault for being obese. The human body didn't evolve to factor 24/7 access to food. Things like food deserts also exist and actually healthy food can be too expensive for poorer people. There are also numerous conditions which make it difficult to lose or maintain weight.
This needs to become an important national discussion.
NoblesseOblige
Banned
That is one explosive medical study.
thesoapster
Member
Yep. Small sample size from one area.
As others have pointed out, I think they need more data when looking at the relationship. I mean to me it just seems like if you start out without using and building our willpower and self regulation when your younger as it relates to food (and probobly most things) than when you get older your going have a brain structure that support the poor habits and behavior. Neurons that fire together wire together, their density I believe also increases along with network connections.
It pretty easy to see how in any area where you have poor self regulation/habits change becomes harder because of how your neurology gets built out. It also makes sense how its common that parents who have poor habits than build them into their children, and so on. A vicious cycle on multiple levels.
It pretty easy to see how in any area where you have poor self regulation/habits change becomes harder because of how your neurology gets built out. It also makes sense how its common that parents who have poor habits than build them into their children, and so on. A vicious cycle on multiple levels.
That's not true. It depends on the sampling and the kind of experimental design you're doing.
Having said that, 32 people from the same city is not good sampling and probably does not support their experimental design.
Have we called obesity a mental disease yet? I know some are pushing for poverty to be classified as such, and rightly so.
It's not a poll. You don't need 1500 for it to be valid.
Polls and most social science research need much larger sample sizes because views vary wildly by geography, race, age, gender, etc, and the measures are not as precise.
Brains are roughly the same wherever you are. A sample size of 32 is better than most neuroscience studies.
FloatingDivider
Member
This is legit the sneakiest funny post in this thread so far.
^ n=32 is an adequate sample size for quite a lot in statistics. I worked in a cancer research lab and we used smaller sample sizes than this for a lot of our work. We did a lot of translational medicine research so sparing as many mice as possible was one of our focuses.
- Status