May 12, 2016

Stretching it a bit

Q; Did you see yoghurt prevents cancer?

A: Where?

Q: The Herald (from the Daily Telegraph): “8 ways to lower your cancer risk.” Number one is “Eat yoghurt”. And they even have a link to research. How’s that for impressive?

A: Not exactly a link. They mention the name of a journal, but don’t even give the researchers’ names.

Q: Can’t you find them?

A: Of course. It’s even open-access.

Q: So, how much yoghurt did the people have to eat?

A: No yoghurt was harmed in this experiment. Also no people.

Q: Mice?

A: Mice.

Q: But yoghurt?

A: No. Some of the mice were set up with a restricted set of gut bacteria (missing known nasty ones) by being raised in a mouse colony who all had the restricted set.

Q: But the story says “gave one group of mice beneficial bacteria through probiotic supplements and the other non-beneficial bacteria.

A: Yes, it does. The research paper, not so much. Nor even the press release.

Q: So why yoghurt?

A: One of the bacteria that was more common in the mice with the restricted set is a Lactobacillus strain. Other Lactobacillus strains, even sometimes from the same species, are involved in making yoghurt, sourdough, sauerkraut, kimchi, etc.

Q: And you could use the mouse bacteria to make these foods?

A: In principle, probably, though you might not want to advertise it that way.

Q: So, the mice with more Lactobacillus were less likely to get cancer?

A: These were mutant mice who all get cancer, so that’s not really the question. They took longer to get cancer.

Q: So we can’t really be confident yoghurt would prevent normal mice from getting cancer?

A: No, it’s too soon to tell.

Q: Good thing normal mice don’t read the newspapers, then.

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Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »

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