Is Sleeping in Bed Harzardous? Not!

Most people die in bed, the NIH's Dr. Jacques Rossouw said yesterday while the two of us were waiting to participate in a media panel on communicating complicated nutrition science. That doesn't mean that beds are hazardous to your health.

We were talking about how easy it is to draw the wrong conclusion from studies that detect a link or association between two different--and yet objectively truthful--factors or trends.

These so-called observational studies are the least rigorous type of scientific study and yet they often get lumped in with well-controlled, randomized trials in terms of believability.

Observational studies are responsible for more cases of what I call the "Mighty May" than just about anything else.

Still, they can be useful. Observational studies were the first evidence of the very real cause-and-effect relationships between smoking and lung cancer, emphysema and heart disease.

Other times, observational studies lead you down the garden path to the wrong conclusion. They have their place in the scientific enterprise but should be interpreted with caution.

Otherwise, you get headlines that are the equivalent of saying "Sleeping in a bed may be hazardous to your health."