A recent paper by Schutze et al has received quite wide attention in the press. Out of interest I went and had a quick look at the paper itself, a look that left me rather puzzled on a few fronts. I'm putting these items of puzzlement up here in the hope that someone might be able to enlighten me.
1) The abstract (and the text) contains the phrase "[i]f we assume causality". This is not something that I could (or would) ever write in my own papers - is it common in the medical literature for people to do this?
2) The abstract concludes that "[t]hese data support current political efforts to reduce or to abstain from alcohol consumption to reduce the incidence of cancer." I was genuinely shocked to read this. To me it is utterly contrary to the scientific method to make statements like this in an actual scientific paper. Write an editorial or opinion piece to accompany the paper, certainly, but making political claims in one's discussion just seems plain wrong to me. Again, is this common in the medical literature?
3) Table 2 seems to suggest that giving up alcohol is more hazardous than continuing to drink (a hazard risk ratio for alcohol related cancers in men of 1.1 in continuous drinkers compared to 3.72 in former drinkers). Am I just being a bit daft here and misinterpreting the statistics? Risk calculations aren't my thing, so that is quite likely.
Overall I find the paper a bit heavy on fancy stats methods, which I'm always a little suspicious of; but I'm sure that is just the reaction of someone who doesn't particularly enjoy their time with Matlab.
So, it would be great if somebody who is directly involved in medical research could say whether the things that I was puzzled by are indeed puzzling, or whether I'm just succumbing to some cross-disciplinary confusion.
Schütze M, Boeing H, Pischon T, Rehm J, Kehoe T, Gmel G, Olsen A, Tjønneland AM, Dahm CC, Overvad K, Clavel-Chapelon F, Boutron-Ruault MC, Trichopoulou A, Benetou V, Zylis D, Kaaks R, Rohrmann S, Palli D, Berrino F, Tumino R, Vineis P, Rodríguez L, Agudo A, Sánchez MJ, Dorronsoro M, Chirlaque MD, Barricarte A, Peeters PH, van Gils CH, Khaw KT, Wareham N, Allen NE, Key TJ, Boffetta P, Slimani N, Jenab M, Romaguera D, Wark PA, Riboli E, & Bergmann MM (2011). Alcohol attributable burden of incidence of cancer in eight European countries based on results from prospective cohort study. BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 342 PMID: 21474525
