QTRS Oct 24, 2024

Graphs and interesting content for the curious

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Maybe saturated fat isn’t so bad

Paraphrasing from the abstract: In 1952, Ancel Keys introduced the hypothesis that we all know today that high intakes of fat and cholesterol lead to atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries). Keys developed an equation to predict cholesterol levels based on diet, specifically saturated fat, polyunsaturated fat, and cholesterol. It turns out Keys didn’t single out trans-fat as a parameter.

Nevertheless, these have been the cornerstone of national and international dietary guidelines which have focused disproportionately on heart disease and much less so on cancer and metabolic disorders, which have steadily increased since the adoption of this hypothesis.

This is from the paper The Lipid–Heart Hypothesis and the Keys Equation Defined the Dietary Guidelines but Ignored the Impact of Trans-Fat and High Linoleic Acid Consumption (5/11/2024).

The chart here from the paper is from a specific study, the Seven Countries Study. If you look at the left chart, you might say, Well, it does look like CHD deaths go up as fat intake goes up. But not so fast. A couple of facts from this paper—I couldn’t believe this first one.

Caption: Figure 1. Results from the Seven Countries Study. (Figure 1A) There was no association between the % of total calories as fat and CHD deaths. Crete (K) had the lowest all-cause and CHD deaths but had one of the highest fat intakes at 36.1%. However, the East Finland (E) cohort consumed a comparable amount of fat at 38.5% and had the highest number of CHD deaths. (Figure 1B) Keys claimed that there was an association between CHD deaths and the ratio of (MUFA/SFA) intake. However, the fifteen-year analysis of data showed otherwise: three cohorts with the lowest CHD death rates (Tanushimaru (T), Ushibuka (U), and Slavonia (S)) had the same MUFA/SFA ratio of 1.0 as the cohort which had the second highest CHD deaths (US railroad men (A)). (The legends are those used in [24]).

Here is the first fact (bold mine).

The participating countries and cohorts were not representative, and the dietary records were incomplete. For example, the US railroad cohort of men are not representative of the US population, and they only completed a single-day dietary record.

Obviously, men that work on the railroad aren’t representative of the U.S. population. Why even do the study if you can’t get a good sample? It doesn’t get any more basic statistics than this. Gee, I wonder if men working on railroads might be exposed to all sorts of toxins and other health hazards that might impact health outcomes. In other words, the graph on the left is meaningless due to a garbage sample.

One more that relates to the graph on the right.

Keys claimed that there was an association between CHD deaths and the ratio of the intake of monounsaturated fatty acid to saturated fatty acid (MUFA/SFA). However, the data showed otherwise: two cohorts with the lowest CHD death rates (Tanushimaru and Ushibuka) had the same MUFA/SFA ratio of 1.0 as the cohort which had the second highest number of CHD deaths (US railroad men) (Figure 1B).

A key paragraph from the conclusion.

A 1987 New York Times article on the cholesterol controversy suggests that Keys had softened his position on cholesterol: “I’ve come to think that cholesterol is not as important as we used to think it was… Let’s reduce cholesterol by reasonable means but let’s not get too excited about it” [158]. Keys made this statement three years after he abandoned his efforts to prove his equation and around the time that the first paper with the partial results of the unsuccessful Minnesota Coronary Experiment was being prepared for the publication in which he was not included as an author. The lipid–heart hypothesis should be abandoned, as Keys himself appeared to be saying in 1987. However, as this historical review has noted, the lipid–heart hypothesis has not only failed to prevent heart disease, but it has also harmed the overall health of people, from children to adults, in so many ways. Using the lipid–heart hypothesis as support, natural diets are being replaced by synthetic diets with dire consequences for global health.

Dietary and health studies are hard to do because there are challenges to doing experiments. This means that studies are largely observational, and it isn’t easy to conclude some form of causality from observational studies. Yet, what we do see is misinformation about fat intake persisting for decades. Btw, I’m not suggesting you now go out and eat a stick of butter. Read the paper first, at least.

Diagnosed psychiatric disorders—male vs. females

In (a), we see that females (red) have a generally higher rate of diagnosed psychiatric disorders than males (blue) in Sweden, except before age 10 and about the same in the late 60s (why?). Yet, there are noticeable differences depending on the disorder. This comes from the paper Sex differences in clinically diagnosed psychiatric disorders over the lifespan: a nationwide register-based study in Sweden (10/21/2024). The caption below gives the disorders in each graph.

Caption: Standardized incidence rate of clinically diagnosed psychiatric disorders over the lifespan among females and males: a nationwide cohort study in Sweden, 2003–2019. This figure shows standardized incidence rate for a) any psychiatric disorder, b) depressive disorders, c) anxiety disorders, d) stress-related disorders, e) eating disorders, f) attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, g) alcohol use disorders, h) autism spectrum disorder, i) drug use disorders, j) bipolar disorder, and k) schizophrenia. Incidence rate was standardized by distribution of calendar period of the accumulated person-years during follow-up. Different scales are used for different diagnoses. The shaded bands indicate 95% CI.

Odds of same educational marriage

What are the odds that a married couple has the same educational level? Up until about 2010, it was at 4:1 (or 4 / (4 + 1) = 80% of marriages). The paper Eight Decades of Educational Assortative Mating: A Research Note (10/1/2024) refers to this as educational assortative mating. It has gone down a bit since. The paper has figures by different categories. Here is the one by race and ethnicity.

I’ve noted in past posts that the order by race is often the same. Here again we have Asians at the top of assortative mating and Blacks at the bottom. Some of this might simply be due to what we might consider supply and demand. For example, if all people in a group are at the same education level, then all marriages are among the same educational level. Given Asian levels of education, their high odds of homogamy may not be a surprise. I’m not sure what to say about the other groups, but the overall results are interesting and have social implications. For instance, high homogamy odds leave us with less mixing of educational classes. Having these odds go down is probably a good thing overall, and one reason may be that women are becoming more accepting of “marrying down.”

Why do people own guns?

One reason is for hunting. What percentage of gun owners have guns for this reason? The figure here is from Reasons for Gun Ownership Among Demographically Diverse New and Prior Gun Owners (November 2024—I know it is October; it is what the paper says).

This is the fourth pane in a set of graphs. Here is the caption.

Figure 1 Degree of importance for reasons for gun ownership. (A) For protection at home. (B) For protection out of home. (C) For protection in ideologic conflict. (D) For hunting or recreation (weighted)

It is worth noting that less than 10% of all gun owners say that owning a gun for hunting isn’t important. Interestingly, two groups are notably higher: Democrats and Non-Hispanic Black.

If we restrict to very or extremely important, we get 75% of gun responding to the importance of hunting. The point here is that gun owners really do value hunting, which is at least partly why they own guns. This shouldn’t be ignored in any gun debate.

Crime and parenting

This graph from In Cities Where Single Parenting Is the Norm, Child Poverty and Violent Crime Are High (10/14/2024) is worth noting but I’d caution against assuming some form of causation.

The article gives some possible reasons towards causation,

Why are violent crime rates so high in Ohio cities where unmarried mothers are in the majority? There are several reasons. Single-parent families with children are apt to make frequent residential moves and to live in unsafe neighborhoods as a result of family disruption.⁵ That makes them more vulnerable to becoming victims of both property and violent crime.

Having broken up with their child’s other parent, a single parent will usually begin dating and trying to find a new partner. This process often involves being out of the house at night, sometimes leaving children with inadequate supervision, exposing children to strange (and sometimes dangerous) men. As children become adolescents, their peers in their less-than-ideal neighborhoods and schools are often troubled and can lead them into hazardous situations and activities. And children in single-parent families are more likely than those in two-parent families to have a father or sibling with a criminal record. 

but they aren’t that strong, and there may be a number of other factors.

Data center update

Microsoft acquires 316 acres outside Grand Rapids, Michigan (10/22/2024).

The site, on the corner of Patterson Avenue and 76th Street, was acquired from furniture seller Steelcase Inc. for $45.3 million for a potential data center development.

Amazon acquires 220 acres in Phoenix, Arizona, for a possible data center (10/21/2024).

Citing real estate database Vizzda, BizJournal reports Amazon acquired the site in Laveen for $277 million in cash through its subsidiary Amazon Data Services.

Energy construction costs

This is simply worth noting from the eia. (10/22/2024) Of course, while it is cheaper to set up a natural gas station, the plant still needs natural gas to generate electricity. Still, the cost of a solar set up is almost twice that of natural gas.

The spinning CD

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Please point out if you think something was expressed wrongly or misinterpreted. I'd rather know the truth and understand the world than be correct. I welcome comments and disagreement. We should all be forced to express our opinions and change our minds, but we should also know how to respectfully disagree and move on. Send me article ideas, feedback, or other thoughts at briefedbydata@substack.com.

Bio

I am a tenured mathematics professor at Ithaca College (PhD Math: Stochastic Processes, MS Applied Statistics, MS Math, BS Math, BS Exercise Science), and I consider myself an accidental academic (opinions are my own). I'm a gardener, drummer, rower, runner, inline skater, 46er, and R user. I’ve written the textbooks R for College Mathematics and Statistics and Applied Calculus with R. I welcome any collaborations.