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Hypothesis: Gonadal Hormones Act as Confounders in Epidemiological Studies of the Associations between Some Behavioural Risk Factors and Some Pathological Conditions by WILLIAM H. JAMES is a Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology article available to read on EtoBox.

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There are grounds for suspecting that, to varying degrees, smoking, alcohol consumption, oral contraceptive use, vasectomy and induced abortion are markers for high steroid hormone levels. So in epidemiological studies, false inferences may be drawn that these markers (treated as risk factors) have causal or exacerbating e!ects on diseases which are truly partially caused by high levels of hormones (e.g. probably prostatic cancer and breast cancer). Analogously, such studies of conditions which are truly partially caused by low levels of hormones (e.g. bone fractures, poor sperm quality, and perhaps testicular cancer and rheumatoid arthritis) may yield spurious suggestions of an ameliorative e!ect. The results of epidemiological studies of the above "ve &&risk factors'' for the above six pathologies are\*in many cases\*in striking disarray. I suggest that this is, at least partially, because of this form of confounding. The point may be tested by contrasting the hormone levels of people who self-select for smoking, vasectomy, etc., at the time that self-selection is made with those of appropriately selected control subjects.

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Author

WILLIAM H. JAMES

Publisher

Elsevier Science; Elsevier ; Elsevier Inc.; Elsevier BV (ISSN 0022-5193)

Published

2001

Language

EN

Field

Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (Life Sciences)