Unraveling the ties of altitude, oxygen and lung cancer
By George Johnson, New York Times
Epidemiologists have long been puzzled by a strange pattern in their data: People living at higher altitudes appear less likely to get lung cancer.
Associations like these can be notoriously misleading. Slice and dice the profusion of data, and there is no end to the coincidences that can arise.
A paper published last year in the journal PeerJ plumbed the question to new depths and arrived at an intriguing explanation. The higher you live, the thinner the air, so maybe oxygen is a cause of lung cancer.
Oxygen cannot compete with cigarettes, of course, but the study suggests that if everyone in the United States moved to the alpine heights of San Juan County, Colo. (population: 700), there would be 65,496 fewer cases of lung cancer each year.
Cleaner air seems like the obvious reason. But then I didn’t spend any grant money or take months to research that conclusion so it couldn’t be right….
Associations like these can be notoriously misleading…
#1 Correlation does not equal causation
#2 Mark Twain and Herman Cain remain my authorities on statistics
Perhaps people who live at higher elevations live healthier lifestyles. Perhaps there are not as many smokers.