Philippe Stoop, Director of Research & Innovation at itk, was interviewed on 26 March 2020 by the European Scientist following the publication of his note “Health and Food: Beware of false statistical pretence!” for the Academy of Agriculture.
In recent months, several high-profile epidemiological studies have reported strong statistical links between the risk of cancer and the consumption of organic or “highly processed” foods. However, these results are based on complex statistical treatments, which a close examination shows to be fragile: taken individually, each of these publications seems to strongly minimize the effect of well-established cancer risk factors.
Moreover, when compared with each other, they contradict each other, even though they were conducted on the same population.
Although published in prestigious journals, this work thus reinforces the concerns of eminent epidemiologists, who are calling for a rethinking of the methods used in nutritional epidemiology.
Read Philippe Stoop’s full interview on European Scientist: “Food and health… statistical models make indigestion“.
See also the academic note “Health and food: beware of statistical pretences” by Philippe STOOP.
Predict and Decide