Animal, Vegetable, or … Clinical Trial?

Letters1 February 2011Animal, Vegetable, or … Clinical Trial?Teresa T. Fung, ScD, Walter C. Willett, MD, DrPH, and Frank B. Hu, MD, PhDTeresa T. Fung, ScDFrom Simmons College, Boston, MA 02115, and Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115.Search for more papers by this author, Walter C. Willett, MD, DrPHFrom Simmons College, Boston, MA 02115, and Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115.Search for more papers by this author, and Frank B. Hu, MD, PhDFrom Simmons College, Boston, MA 02115, and Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115.Search for more papers by this authorAuthor, Article, and Disclosure Informationhttps://doi.org/10.7326/0003-4819-154-3-201102010-00020 SectionsAboutFull TextPDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissions ShareFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail TO THE EDITOR:In their editorial that accompanied our article on low-carbohydrate diets and mortality (1), Yancy and colleagues (2) raised methodological issues to cast doubts on the value of observational studies as well as to state criticisms specific to our paper. These methodological issues include unmeasured confounding, measurement errors, and discrepant results from observational studies and randomized clinical trials.In our article, we addressed the potential influence of unmeasured confounders by using a sensitivity analysis that tests the robustness of the results (3). As we stated, the unmeasured confounder would have to have a relative risk of 2.0 and ...References1. Fung TT, van Dam RM, Hankinson SE, Stampfer M, Willett WC, Hu FB. Low-carbohydrate diets and all-cause and cause-specific mortality: two cohort studies. Ann Intern Med. 2010;153:289-98. [PMID: 20820038] LinkGoogle Scholar2. Yancy WS, Maciejewski ML, Schulman KA. Animal, vegetable, or … clinical trial? [Editorial]. Ann Intern Med. 2010;153:337-9. [PMID: 20820043] LinkGoogle Scholar3. Lin DY, Psaty BM, Kronmal RA. Assessing the sensitivity of regression results to unmeasured confounders in observational studies. Biometrics. 1998;54:948-63. [PMID: 9750244] CrossrefMedlineGoogle Scholar4. Spiegelman D, McDermott A, Rosner B. Regression calibration method for correcting measurement-error bias in nutritional epidemiology. Am J Clin Nutr. 1997;65:1179S-1186S. [PMID: 9094918] CrossrefMedlineGoogle Scholar5. Grodstein F, Clarkson TB, Manson JE. Understanding the divergent data on postmenopausal hormone therapy. N Engl J Med. 2003;348:645-50. [PMID: 12584376] CrossrefMedlineGoogle Scholar6. Mendelsohn ME, Karas RH. HRT and the young at heart [Editorial]. N Engl J Med. 2007;356:2639-41. [PMID: 17582075] CrossrefMedlineGoogle Scholar7. Halton TL, Willett WC, Liu S, Manson JE, Albert CM, Rexrode K, et al. Low-carbohydrate-diet score and the risk of coronary heart disease in women. N Engl J Med. 2006;355:1991-2002. [PMID: 17093250] CrossrefMedlineGoogle Scholar8. Willett WC. The WHI joins MRFIT: a revealing look beneath the covers [Editorial]. Am J Clin Nutr. 2010;91:829-30. [PMID: 20181816] CrossrefMedlineGoogle Scholar Author, Article, and Disclosure InformationAffiliations: From Simmons College, Boston, MA 02115, and Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115.Disclosures: None disclosed. PreviousarticleNextarticle Advertisement FiguresReferencesRelatedDetailsSee AlsoLow-Carbohydrate Diets and All-Cause and Cause-Specific Mortality Teresa T. Fung , Rob M. van Dam , Susan E. Hankinson , Meir Stampfer , Walter C. Willett , and Frank B. Hu Animal, Vegetable, or … Clinical Trial? William S. Yancy Jr. , Matthew L. Maciejewski , and Kevin A. Schulman Metrics 1 February 2011Volume 154, Issue 3Page: 215KeywordsCardiovascular diseasesCoronary heart diseaseDietFatsObservational studiesProteins ePublished: 1 February 2011 Issue Published: 1 February 2011 Copyright & PermissionsCopyright © 2011 by American College of Physicians. All Rights Reserved.PDF downloadLoading ...