What You’re Up Against – Eggs Linked to Diabetes

November 23rd, 2008 · No Comments · Bad Science, Confirmation Bias, Media Bias

Via reader Chris S. comes this absolutely astounding news: "Eating an egg a day can raise the risk of developing diabetes." And, of course, such "startling" news is being uncritically reported all over the place. You can access the abstract here.

In a word: absurd. I don't know what's worse, actually doing this sort of meaningless and useless "research" in the first place, or mindlessly shilling for it via sensational "news" reporting. In my opinion, the whole lot of 'em ought to be pelted with rotten fruits, vegetables, and of course, eggs.

Now, here's why. This is an observational study, not a controlled intervention study. And not randomized, either. In essence, what they did was to take data from two other studies, data that was gathered by means of an annual questionnaire. As it turned out when they analyzed the data, those who developed type 2 diabetes were largely the same people who tended to eat a fair amount of eggs. Correlation or association, however, in no way implies causation. It could also turn out that the people who got diabetes take hotter showers, on average.

The only thing you can really say is that type 2 is surely linked to diet, diet composition is an individual thing, and it happens that the people who generally have a taste for the foods that tend to lead to the development of diabetes also happen to have a greater than average liking for eggs as well.

Apparently, they only looked for an association with eggs. They didn't look at what, for instance, those who developed type 2 ate with their eggs, i.e., bacon & sausage, or, lots of hash browns, toast, pancakes, waffles, syrup, jams, jellies, fruit cocktails and so on. They didn't look to see, in general, if those who developed Type 2 tended to have higher or lower carbohydrate intake, and, what kind of carbs, i.e., from fruits & vegetables, or from products containing white flour, white sugar, processed vegetable oils, and/or high fructose corn syrup.

But no; couldn't possibly be foods that have continually and steadily grown to super proportions in the American diet over the last century. Nope: it's the eggs, a food humans and their ancestors have been poaching from nests since the dawn of time millions of years ago.

Some of my other posts to shed light on this sort of menace to society: