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by pessimizer·14y ago·view on hn ↗
No, they normally never control for anything that smells of class (like income) because if they do, the health effect disappears. There was a good recent case or rerunning a study and controlling for class, thereby eliminating an effect (I think it was about potatoes and weight gain or something.) Don't have access to it here, but I'll try to post it when I get home.

IMO 95% of the health studies that catch fire in the popular press are repeated rediscoveries of class (smoking, fast food and types of food, etc.), or the qualities of illness (people who sit more die earlier, people who are depressed die earlier, etc.)

They did mention controlling for smoking, though, because they found that it counted against them.