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Depression Linked to Ultra-Processed Foods, Artificial Sweeteners (www.webmd.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

He said that because this is an observational study – one that looked at data already gathered – they cannot say highly processed food causes depression. That said, he thinks the data is strong.

“We were able to adjust for a number of what are called confounding variables in our analysis to suggest that eating more ultra-processed foods really could increase your risk of depression.”

“Sometimes what you see when you adjust for these variables is that the models or the results get weaker. And we didn’t really see that at all,” he later said.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yeah this is dodgy. Basically he's saying "we cannot say something but we'll say it anyway,". You only need 1 confounding factor or 1 incorrect adjustment to completely break the validity of any link.

To say the link got stronger as they adjusted for different confounding factors doesn't mean anything. It's a specious argument.