Another interesting episode. A few thoughts: first of all a dude named Stuart who looks like Stuart not liking sports is the most shocking revelation since it was revealed concussions are bad.
More seriously: when all cause mortality came up I had the thought that it's possible that a chunk of the increase in dementia is just a decrease in mortality. Basically the causal chain is that dementia risk is correlated with earlier death and because these athletes live longer they are more likely to live to dementia instead of dying before it. Would be curious to see assorted cancer rates because if my hypothesis is true then you'd probably expect higher cancer rates even though there's no reason to expect an athlete to be more succeptable to cancer.
Another interesting episode. A few thoughts: first of all a dude named Stuart who looks like Stuart not liking sports is the most shocking revelation since it was revealed concussions are bad.
More seriously: when all cause mortality came up I had the thought that it's possible that a chunk of the increase in dementia is just a decrease in mortality. Basically the causal chain is that dementia risk is correlated with earlier death and because these athletes live longer they are more likely to live to dementia instead of dying before it. Would be curious to see assorted cancer rates because if my hypothesis is true then you'd probably expect higher cancer rates even though there's no reason to expect an athlete to be more succeptable to cancer.
It feels mildly bad to be a stereotype, but only mildly.
Very good point re the mortality issue. Someone else reminded me of this paper, which covers related mind-bending statistical artefacts that can occur in this kind of research: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1529100620920576
We'll mention this on the next Mea Culpa episode as, whereas it's not a mistake per se, it's a pretty important thing to add.
As someone from Houston, I can verify it should be pronounced "Hyousten".
Thank you!!! My one actual contribution to this episode.
god dammit. Thank you!
I can make it MORE confusing by saying the road in New York City with the same name is pronounced Houston
I was right about that though! I learned it from an R.E.M. song.