Research

Energy balance

Body Mass Index (BMI) is a major confounder in studies linking macronutrient intake to mortality, and its exclusion from multivariate analysis in the PURE study is questionable.

When evaluating studies on diet and health, check if BMI was included as a confounder. Its absence may skew results, as BMI is strongly linked to both diet and mortality.

GoodQualifiesHIGH confidence
BMI is a major confounder when studying the association between food intake and mortality... Thus, we question why the authors used waist-to-hip ratio rather than BMI as a covariate in the multivariate analysis.
Xi‐Peng Cao et al. · The Lancet · 2018

Why this rating

Based on established epidemiological principles regarding BMI and mortality.

Source

Associations of fats and carbohydrates with cardiovascular disease and mortality—PURE and simple?

Xi‐Peng Cao et al. · The Lancet · 2018

DOI 10.1016/s0140-6736(18)30793-1

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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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