
People who tend to be optimistic are likelier to live to 85 or more: study - dhimes
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/09/01/755185560/optimists-for-the-win-finding-the-bright-side-might-help-you-live-longer
======
aytekin
More likely: "People who live 85 or more have more of the good things like
health and safe environment which also makes them optimistic."

~~~
has2k1
It is possible to imagine a potential casual process that leads to earlier
death. What if pessimism creates a constant presence of key stress hormones
(Adrenaline, Cortisol and Norepinephrine) and these are already linked to
higher likelihoods of heart disease, cancer, ...

~~~
rzzzt
What if the constant presence of stress hormones makes people more prone to
pessimism?

~~~
achenatx
Anecdotally, Ive been very fortunate to have a positive brain chemistry. When
bad things have happened, my brain pretty much doesn't worry on them.
Eventually things work out (or something good eventually happens) and I get
through the bad times.

There is no way to explain or describe this positive brain chemistry in a way
that anyone can believe. But since I was a kid, my parents have been worried
that Im too happy as they know dissatisfaction is what drives people to
achieve. They would say things like "your only problem is you are too happy".

I havent lived to 85 yet though, so who knows.

~~~
wozniacki
Does it ever bother you when people find that youre "too happy" which people
might take it to mean that no outcome to any given event, can really displease
you?

Have you read up on what such a "condition" \- if it can be called that - is
called medically? Do others share it as well?

~~~
achenatx
the way people see it is that I dont react to bad situations. I have been
called "stone cold". I have sometimes wondered if it is related to sociopathy.
I am a giving person and would rather give than receive, so am not very
selfish. However, bad things just dont bother me because there is always
something positive that comes out of everything.

When my wife had an aortic dissection and had a high chance of dying, people
had a hard time understanding how I could be so calm and not be stressed. It
wasnt that I was sure she was going to make it, just that no matter the
outcome I would still find happiness.

~~~
cmehdy
Sincere question here: what makes you certain that you would have found
happiness? I guess the fundamental difference between your way of thinking and
most peoples' is that you seem to be absolutely convinced that happiness
exists and is continuously experienced regardless of the state of reality.
Therefore, regardless of what happens, there will be some form of happiness
and you will experience it.

I'm in awe of this, because my personal view is that happiness is a fleeting
chaotic state that mostly has no easily measurable probability of emerging,
despite my attempts to grasp the shape of the distribution and its evolution
in response to my actions. While I would consider myself not to be
pessimistic, I definitely tend to have extremely rare encounters with what one
would call happiness, which seems to be so starkly different from your life
experience.

~~~
throw_483044
There's a book by Tony Hsieh (Zappos founder) called Delivering Happiness.

Near the end, he talks about three types of "happiness."

The first is pleasure. It's from food, fun, or other external experiences.
While it can bring temporary happiness, you will always be looking for the
next fix.

The second is happiness from passion, such as a hobby or working at your
startup. You can go for years without success and still feel happy. However
eventually you'll need some type of progress to keep going.

The third type is happiness from purpose. Think of it as working towards
something bigger than yourself. This type of happiness can last a lifetime,
even if all you do is sacrifice for it.

------
kristiandupont
Yesterday, my wife stumbled upon a "20 pieces of good news" article and read
it to me. Things like initiatives being taken to save the bees etc. At first I
thought it was a bit silly but I realized that hearing all those good things
did something wonderful: it made me feel quite optimistic on behalf of the
world, which I can't say I have in a while (in spite of my own life going
quite well).

Keeping informed is the duty of a citizen in a democracy and I don't want to
live in a rose colored bubble but I do think I am going to try and curate my
news harder. For now, I started following The Good News Network and The
Constructive Institute on Twitter and I will try and look for other similar
sources.

~~~
mewpmewp2
You should read "factfulness". It annoys me when people talk of the current
world and time in negative tones when it is best we have ever had by many
measurements. Not that we are having a terrible time, but it is cool to think
negatively of the world it seems to me.

~~~
hutzlibu
"when it is best we have ever had by many measurements"

Not really. By an ecologist measuring it is the worst world we have since the
last ice age and getting worse every day.

So sure, when you don't give a sh*t about nature, you can have your happy
bubble of constant happy developement and improvement, but otherwise not. Oh
and of course you also have to have a good air filter installed, as air
pollution is a real thing too and not linked to good health. And streets and
cars and noise is something new, too and also not considered healthy. Burn out
and other civilisation diseases exist as well ...

Do not misunderstodd, I love technology and I don't like the "back to the
trees" solution, as most who propose it, have never spend a full day without
running water and emergency phone 24/7, but I also don't like getting blinded
by only half of the facts.

Yes, thanks to technology we did improve amazingly, but there are many dark
sides to it, we have to deal with now.

~~~
bprieto
"it is the worst world we have since the last ice age"

It isn't.

We have more forests now than 35 years ago [1] Ecological footprint is
decreasing in Europe [2] Death rates from air pollution are dropping [3]

Thanks to technology we can have an amazing quality of life that not even
nobility could dream of a hundred years ago, but we are also doing it in a
more sustainable way.

[1] [https://psmag.com/environment/the-planet-now-has-more-
trees-...](https://psmag.com/environment/the-planet-now-has-more-trees-than-
it-did-35-years-ago) [2] [https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-
maps/indicators/ecologica...](https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-
maps/indicators/ecological-footprint-of-european-countries-1/assessment) [3]
[https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-air-
poll...](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-air-pollution)

------
hadiz
"Optimism Bias" improves our mental and physical well-being. Biases are
irrational, by definition. Our mind is supposedly rational...and rationality
is not always to our benefit.

This kinda blew my mind when I was reading up some philosophy. My key takeaway
was that rationality and logic is not always helpful to make decisions, esp.
when it comes to complex systems such as people (i.e. relationships). As an
engineer, it's tough to get past this mindset. On a daily basis I am striving
to disconnect everything as much as possible because of scale and performance,
but the human brain is nothing like that.

~~~
throwaway_tech
>Biases are irrational, by definition.

Not all biases are irrational...in fact most biases are in rational
predispositions based on knowledge and/or first hand experience. Basically its
an attempt to apply logic/rationality to unknown situations.

Bias is always framed as a negative word/trait, and it certainly can be (like
racial prejudice), but bias should also be looked at as an evolutionary tool
humans can use to apply past learned experiences to similar situations in the
future.

Just as an example, motorcycle riders may have a bias against certain types of
vehicles because of their training/experience, and they apply this bias when
making decisions that impact their safety on the road, even though the
specific vehicle/situation may not pose a danger. In an evolutionary context,
maybe you saw a fury 4 legged animal kill one of the members of your tribe, so
you apply a bias against all 4 legged fury animals. Now you don't know if all
fury 4 legged animals are dangerous, or pose a threat, but at the same time
its no irrational to apply the bias because in potentially life/death
situations it may be better safe than sorry. Obviously its good to keep and
open mind, maybe you can train such an animal and it may even turn out to be
your best friend, but nothing wrong with approaching the situation with your
bias either.

~~~
n4r9
Two types of rationality are being conflated here, namely "close to the truth"
and "increases my odds of surviving".

------
300bps
About three years ago I read someone on here recommend the book, “Learned
Optimism”. They said it was life changing.

I read it, did the work, and it is life changing. People with a pessimistic
outlook are much less happy than people with an optimistic outlook. The book
teaches you how each type thinks (for example, optimists think everything good
that happens to them is personal and permanent and every bad thing that
happens is impersonal and temporary. Pessimists are the opposite). The book
then teaches you essentially a cognitive behavioral therapy technique to
retrain your brain to think more like an optimist. It’s work but so worth it
especially if you ever experience anxiety.

~~~
silveroriole
Weren’t you troubled by the fact that he admits optimists are factually wrong
compared to pessimists, blame others, don’t admit fault, and just seem like
generally unpleasant people (insurance salesmen and the type of person who
talks on planes, for example)? Yeah, okay, they are happier, live longer, are
more successful, get elected... but at what cost to the world? I came away
thinking we should train the optimists to listen to pessimists more, not the
opposite...

~~~
300bps
The book is not for everyone. By that I mean that there are people in the
world that think everything they do will fail. That obsess on every
interaction with friends and significant others trying to look for signs that
they don’t like them anymore. People that are riddled with anxiety on a daily
basis because they always expect bad things to happen. That catastrophize
every minor negative thing that happens in their lives.

Those people will have their lives changed significantly for the better by
following the program in the book.

I am not troubled that reading a book will give you Narcissist Personality
Disorder or as you said turn you into an insurance salesman.

------
heavyset_go
I can't think of a more literal example of survivorship bias.

~~~
autokad
there is no way I'm making it to 85

~~~
booi
Not with that attitude

~~~
masonic
Q.E.D.

------
JackPoach
"The study included 69,744 women and 1,429 men."

Does this mean it's much easier to find optimistic women than men?

~~~
blihp
Probably easier to find women still alive at that age. (Here in the U.S. at
least, women tend to outlive men by ~5 years)

~~~
adventskalender
If women are more optimistic than men, then that alone could be sufficient to
yield the results of the study (correlation).

------
mattsfrey
A lot of cynicism in the comments here, but having an optimistic outlook has
been a boon throughout history in almost all accounts. It's definitely harder
today with all of the mass media and the constant negativity, but in my
opinion it's hard to argue with the logic.. positive energy yields positive
results.. at least more so than negative energy

~~~
WalterBright
Every day you can get up out of bed, enjoy a cup of coffee, and go outside and
see the trees and smell the air, it's a great freakin' day.

~~~
nestorherre
Yep, so many things to be grateful of, but most of the people are just too
"blind" to see them and acknowledge it. A gratitude journal is a really
powerful tool.

------
aapeli
This is a hidden case of confounding. In particular, you would expect a
question such as "in uncertain times I usually expect the best" to be very
heavily confounded with your chance of making it through uncertain times (in
the past and in the future).

Yes, they controlled for basic things like some generic concept of health,
diet and smoking, but there's so many things that are hard to control for.

As a simple example: what if you have some rare genetic disease that's not
controlled for but will likely kill you?

------
winrid
Met a 91 year old guy during my travels in China. He was walking around and
talking to people when I was there without help.

His family said he drinks a beer for breakfast every day. He drank Boju
(instead of beer) before his wife died several years ago.

Maybe the secret to a long life is 40% alcohol, a happy marriage, and good
genetics.

He looked very happy.

------
Bostonian
For such studies, a randomized control trial should be done. For half the
group, present the research on optimism and encourage them to be optimistic.
For the other half, do nothing. I predict that telling people to be optimistic
will not be effective.

~~~
liquidise
I’d love to see a different question answered: is there an inverse correlation
to be drawn between optimism and stress levels. From my experience significant
stress can be just as debilitating as physical ailments and I find that
optimists seem to handle stressful situations with more apparent ease than
others.

~~~
refurb
That’s where my train of thought was going.

Less optimistic, more stress, lower life expectancy.

~~~
vasilipupkin
I would guess causality runs the other way: people with high stress in life
have lower life expectancy and also tend to be less optimistic because it’s
easier to be optimistic if things are going well for you

~~~
4ntonius8lock
I'd say there's even a third option, the causality runs back AND forth (both
good thoughts can lead to good outcomes as well as bad outcomes can lead to
bad thoughts and vice a versa)

Even in this third option there exist an infinite number of sub options on a
gradient (where each direction carries more or less weight).

Of course, any meaningful conversation can only happen after definitions (like
what is pessimistic) are agreed upon. I for one don't agree with the
definition of pessimism as defined by the study.

~~~
refurb
It probably goes both ways?

It’s well known that two people can have the exact same experience (e.g.
fighting in a war, experience a natural disaster) and have vastly different
psychological outcomes from it. Some can deal with it easily, while others are
crippled by it.

------
tines
But are people who live to 85 or more likely to have been optimistic?

------
ivanhoe
Reminds me of that joke that pessimist is just an optimist with a real life
experience.

~~~
WalterBright
My dad survived flying 30 missions over Germany when his group had 80%
casualties. He had accepted that he wouldn't survive.

He was always an optimist. I'd ask him why, and he'd say he survived the war
when so many of his buddies didn't, and was going to enjoy every day of it.
(He lived to 93.)

~~~
hycaria
Just wondering, do you often tell this anecdote ? Feels like I've read it a
few times around here already.

~~~
WalterBright
Yes, I do. I thought it was an entirely appropriate response to the parent's
comment.

------
pella
The "Optimism" \+ "Placebo" \- theory is also interesting.

(2007)

 _" A prior investigation found that individuals low in optimism are more
likely to follow a negative placebo (nocebo) expectation. The present study
tested the hypothesis that individuals high in optimism are more likely to
follow a positive placebo expectation."_

 _" Results Optimism was positively associated with better sleep quality in
the placebo expectation condition (r=.48, P<.05). Optimism scores were not
associated with better sleep quality in either the treatment control condition
(r=−.17, P=.46) or the no-placebo control condition (r=−.24, P=.35)."_

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00223...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022399906005319)

~~~
pella
Your doctor optimism is more important!

"The placebo effect works and you can catch it from your doctor" (October 22,
2019 )

 _" If there's one thing you do want to catch from a trip to your doctor, it's
her optimism."_

 _" The new study both demonstrates that the placebo effect is transmitted
from doctor to patient, and shows how it might work. Researchers randomly
assigned undergraduate students to play the role of a patient or a doctor. The
"patients" were given a controlled heat stimulus to the forearm, after
receiving one of two types of cream from the "doctor.""_

[https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/10/21/npr-the-placebo-
eff...](https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/10/21/npr-the-placebo-effect-works-
and-you-can-catch-it-from-your-doctor)

~~~
amelius
So pessimists can't be doctors?

------
nif2ee
Seriously Who the hell do and fund these "being optimist makes you live
longer, eating healthy makes you longer, water found to be wet" researches? Is
this because of the so much supply in graduate schools or researchers/schools
want to see their names in the press?

~~~
tasty_freeze
It is completely valid to study. There are plenty of "every knows that" bits
of wisdom that are wrong. Or the degree of the effect is unknown. Or the
mechanism of effect is unknown.

Let me be concrete. Everyone knows that it is better to eat more fruits and
vegetables and less processed food. Off the top of your head, how much must
one eat to make a difference? Does it help people live longer, or just reduce
sickness? Does it help by 1%, 5%, 20%?

If you just read the title of the report it is easy to be cynical and say,
"duh, I knew that", but if you read the actual study it surely will give
insights that you were not aware of.

------
4ntonius8lock
When I read the tile and skimmed through the article, I thought: define
pessimism.

I mean, I consider myself pessimistic, but what do THEY who designed the study
consider pessimistic. I tend to find the fault in things, see how they are
wrong, or in general anticipate some negativity that most people will
overlook. It's literally what makes me good at my job.

So I clicked through to the study. Which mentioned it used the Life
Orientation Test-Revised (LOT-R) to test for pessimism.

So I looked up the Life Orientation Test-Revised (LOT-R) and found what
questions and answers they consider pessimistic.

These are questions a 'pessimist' is supposed to answer as being 'very true':

3\. If something can go wrong for me, it will. (R)

7\. I hardly ever expect things to go my way. (R)

Welp I can't say these are views of pessimists. More of someone depressed or
someone who has been beaten down in life.

I admire what they are trying to do, but I'm not sure this study really is
proving anything until there is a clear measure of someone's pessimism. And
for that we need I think better testing for someone's natural inclinations
toward belief and skepticism. I've always associated skepticism as highly
correlated to pessimism (seeing why not) and a tendency to believe in
something at first sight as highly correlated with 'positivism' (seeing why
yes).

Objectively speaking, of the 7,000,000,000 people in the world, some
percentage will have objectively way less things 'go their way' then for
others. It's simply how distributions work. So for someone like that to answer
question 7 affirmatively, they might not be pessimistic, just someone who has
objectively had a shitty life. And for someone like that, well, less life
expectancy should be expected. I know I've been lucky in life and would answer
7 and 3 as absolutely no despite myself considering myself a pessimist (and
I've been called that enough to suspect others view me as such too)

~~~
jsharf
I feel like usually the pessimistic complaining posts like this in hackernews
are much more negative. It feels like there's a lot of hesitancy in this one
and it's much more accepting/positive because you're afraid of being
pessimistic because of the article :P

(Mostly just being cheeky. It's not fair to judge people on the internet when
you don't know them)

~~~
4ntonius8lock
I'm not afraid of being pessimistic.

I read the article title and wanted to see how accurate it was.

If it was accurate, it would cause me, like a rational creature, to question
my tendencies. I have list of pros and cons for all my proclivities and try to
use/taper my tendencies accordingly. It's not like I'd abandon my tendency
toward pessimism all together, but adding something to the list of cons would
put it's utility into greater question. I'm always questioning my beliefs and
the utility of my tendencies, it's how I constantly improve and progress in
life.

But I also question other peoples assertions. It's the natural thing to do for
me. I think to question how they define pessimism is also quite logical when
trying to objectively measure something.

I'm curious though, can you please tell me how I was complaining? I'm
genuinely interesting in knowing why you perceive that.

------
htk
Correlation does not imply causation. The paragraph stating that the “finding
was independent of other factors” doesn’t really inspire confidence, there are
countless factors that might impact the results.

~~~
bad_user
Cohort studies cannot show causation, indeed, but that's not very relevant for
what's being claimed.

And what they are saying with " _finding was independent of other factors_ "
is that they adjusted for demographics and health conditions.

Yes, there are countless factors that could impact the results, the
adjustments are not perfect, but cohorts are useful clues and in the large
scheme of things, if you are optimistic, this shows you have a higher
likelihood to live longer.

~~~
htk
I might have read too much into it, but it’s easy for readers to extrapolate
to “if you become more optimistic you’ll live longer”. A parallel would be to
read “people who wear XXL are more likely to be fat”, where forcing to wear a
smaller size won’t make them thinner.

------
_ZeD_
relevant kurzgesagt
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPPPFqsECz0&t=248s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPPPFqsECz0&t=248s)

------
bencollier49
Maybe the people who are pessimistic are right?

~~~
coldtea
Doesn't matter. You can be optimistic or pessimist in the same exact
situation. E.g. when in dire economic situation. The pessimist is "right"
sure.

But being right doesn't make you stronger.

If you give up hope, you lose all kinds of benefits of the hopeful - including
fighting till the last minute, and perhaps reversing the situation.

Not to mention that whether you're right or wrong to be hopeful, some
situations just reverse themselves, or something good happens out of nowhere,
in which case the pessimist just got a more expended period of internal
suffering for no good reason.

------
chiefalchemist
The last couple years I've become interested in gut bacteria, especially as it
relates to health. Long to short, I'd like to offer this theory:

People who are optimistic have more friends. People with more friends have
more robust and more diverse gut bacteria. That (i.e., gut bacteria) help the
optimistic live longer.

------
boyadjian
Maybe optimism is profitable on an individual basis. But at the collective
level, I am not sure it is such a good idea. Anyway, not being optimistic does
not mean you must be pessimistic : We just have to be realistic. That mean,
accepting the world for what it is, and not what we want it to be.

~~~
Zod666
I haven't read the article yet but I've heard stats like this before. Is it
simply the effect of a positive emotional state? When my friend and I were
talking about this I said:

'Be happy. Or else.'

~~~
rectang
Or else we'll put the happy helmet on you.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVM1nUmDHHc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVM1nUmDHHc)
(Ren & Stimpy Happy Happy Joy Joy Song)

~~~
Zod666
I told you I'd shoot, but you didn't believe me. Why didn't you believe me!

------
sidcool
Alright. I should be out by 50 then.

~~~
aldoushuxley001
I'm gonna live forever, or die trying.

------
hi41
I wish to be optimistic. My wife says that my pessimism and low energy is
negatively impacting our kids. The article does not go into detail about what
methods one can train on to become more optimistic. Does anyone know of some
methods?

~~~
just_browse_guy
As someone else has mentioned in the thread, the book Learned Optimism is all
about this. I have also found learning meditation from the book The Mind
Illuminated to be helpful. You could also check out CBT, and/or the writings
of Albert Ellis.

Fundamentally, you will need to learn to let go of your negative perspective.
One thing that helped me with this is realizing that the facts of reality are
one thing, and how I feel about them are another. These are entirely
orthogonal, and rewiring yourself to react differently to things is very
doable, especially if you realize that your negative reactions are not
helpful.

------
known
Share of males who survive to the age of 65.
[https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/120860558189372621...](https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/1208605581893726210)

------
tabtab
Pessimists write more reliable code. Optimists assume users won't do funny
stuff. Society owes the early croakers gratitude for their dedicated
pessimism. Oh, and git off my lawn!

------
m3kw9
Maybe because One of the the side effect of being a pessimist is giving up and
just letting it go. That should nudge the data points to support this study

~~~
m3kw9
The the.. do I sound like I stutter mf?

------
ipnon
It could be that people who are pessimistic don't want to live or even want to
die, leading them to engage in reckless or dangerous behavior.

------
aasasd
How many optimists got slapped by the fate off the face of the Earth before
they had a chance to participate in the study?

------
rectang
Optimism is more compelling as an ethic than a philosophy.

Even if pessimism more accurately represents reality, adopting optimism leads
to statistically improved outcomes.

So lie to yourself! Or do whatever it takes to fool yourself into adopting an
optimistic mindset. Pessimism is for losers.

[inb4 zealous optimists claiming that optimism is actually more realistic.]

~~~
whatshisface
If you lie to yourself you'll know you're lying... Also that's a great way to
keep yourself in a bad job or relationship when you could leave and get a
better one.

~~~
firethief
> If you lie to yourself you'll know you're lying.

You either haven't done it enough or are doing it too much

~~~
rectang
Star Trek scene about a robot who cannot handle the Liar's Paradox:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqCiw0wD44U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqCiw0wD44U)

Humans are gifted, sophisticated liars. Don't think you can lie to yourself? I
BELIEVE IN YOU! You can do it!

~~~
sitkack
I think self lie is a defining characteristic of humans. We also use our big
brains to rationalize the decisions we have already made, not using our
capacity for rationalism to make the best decisions.

When we are truly rational, it is highly damaging to our egos.

------
ligand
I really wish articles written about studies like this, where all they found
was a association between stuff, and not a causal relationship, would
explicitly say so. Perhaps through a little box near the end of the article
stating, in simple terms, "the authors found that X and Y are associated. This
does not necessarily mean that doing X will cause Y"

I know the people who read the actual study in journal, entitled "Optimism is
_associated_ with ...", will notice the word "associated" and know what to
make of the results. But Im pretty sure a good number of people who read pop-
science articles like this dont know that "correlation doesnt imply
causation". They will come to the wrong conclusion, and we cant blame them!
Ive found this to be true in friends and family.

~~~
KerrickStaley
And in this case, you could easily imagine the arrow of causation pointing in
the other way. If you have the good fortune of being generally healthy, and
make enough income to have access to good healthcare, it's likely that you
will live to 85. But these same factors also make you a likely optimist.

~~~
halflings
Just copy-pasting neonate's quote from the article, responding to a similar
comment:

_That finding was independent of other factors thought to influence life's
length — such as "socioeconomic status, health conditions, depression, social
integration, and health behaviors"_

Literally the second paragraph on the article.

Read the article before posting comments, folks! :)

------
goguy
No absolutely no chance, it won't happen. Oh wait...

------
meed
I’m so f __cked.

------
asdfman123
Pessimists' outlook: pessimistic

------
tehjoker
Aren't people that are richer, with the exception of those who achieve
existential angst through lack of meaning, more optimistic? :P

If you can't get medical care, I imagine you're both more likely to die and
pretty pessimistic about the state of the world.

It's easy to be optimistic when you have a feeling of control over your
circumstances.

~~~
neonate
_That finding was independent of other factors thought to influence life 's
length — such as "socioeconomic status, health conditions, depression, social
integration, and health behaviors"_

~~~
ummonk
It's a little weird to see a study about the effects of optimism control for
depression...

~~~
stkdump
Only if you think that depression is a lack of optimism.

------
Someone
For those repeating the “correlation isn’t causation” mantra: if you click
through to the original article
([https://www.pnas.org/content/116/37/18357](https://www.pnas.org/content/116/37/18357)),
you’ll find its title is "Optimism is associated with exceptional longevity in
2 epidemiologic cohorts of men and women”, so the authors of the paper are
aware of that.

They tried hard to adjust for demographics and health conditions.

So, any critique should be on where those adjustments fail. The article is
paywalled, so, even if I were knowledgeable about how that can be done, I
can’t tell whether they are valid.

~~~
coldtea
> _so the authors of the paper are aware of that._

The authors of every paper are aware of that. It's a thing that's being
hammered on to them from early days at the university, and they are either
studying for their PhDs or seasoned researchers when they create a paper.

It's mostly geek arrogance and facile dismissal from HN crowd to put this
tired cliche mantra up.

When papers seem to ignore this, it's willingfully so (to get grants, pad
their publications, etc with a nice result), not because they don't know this.

