Perhaps counterintuitively higher prepubertal BMI is strongly protective against breast cancer in later life

Grace Power, @mendelrandom.bsky.social and others (not me!) takes a plausible causal FX of BMI on breast cancer, and narrow down *when* that effect plays out. They find the effects of later BMI on breast cancer are steeply attenuated when conditioned on early BMI. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Newspaper headlines often share compelling quick fixes for health issues - but often the realities of what causes health conditions is more complex. In this blog post @mendelrandom.bsky.social explains why he encourages scientists to look for ways they might be wrong. www.ukri.org/blog/why-evi...

Even Confuseus has caught up on colliderscopes academic.oup.com/ije/article/... 🤣 @f2harrell.bsky.social @michelnivard.bsky.social

Happy New Year! To start the year, do read this @ukri.org interview with our director @mendelrandom.bsky.social, recipient of the prestigious MRC Millennium Medal. medium.com/@UKRI/why-co...

I know a bit about the past of MR, something about the present, and look forward to discussing whether MR has a future, and if so, how that should look

On a Wensleydale pilgrimage - geographically and back in time - to where and when epidemiology was about fieldwork (or practice) amongst real people in actual populations, and involved literally crossing fields … check out his beautifully written papers as a seasonal treat to yourself …

If you enjoy @michelnivard.bsky.social collider bias posts you might enjoy “why epidemiologists who can maintain eye contact are bad at maths” in here www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zPq...

I'm sure @mendelrandom.bsky.social will be gratified to learn that their ads kept popping up during his outstanding YouTube presentation (congrats on the award, George): www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zPq... If you watch one talk on epidemiology this month, make it this one.

🙏 @greally.bsky.social sadly the ads not part of my efforts to become a 💰YouTuber

I have become mightily interested in the causal effect of “forever chemicals” and plastics on gynecological health. I want to make sure our new menstruation data in ALSPAC and Born in Bradford can be used to research this. Anyone know who’s big in (causal) epidemiology of this sort of exposure?

Abolish it!

💯

Have you seen George Davey Smith telling him the smoking findings were completely implausible at a seminar in Edinburgh 1994? youtu.be/K9pyS7EGCV8?...

Its notable that some (in this case @mendelrandom.bsky.social (George Davey-Smith)) were on to him while he was alive, video a young GDS confronting Eysenk in a Q&A in 1994 for his data being inconsistent: youtu.be/K9pyS7EGCV8?...

Just heard of the death last month of Joe Byrd of the extraordinary United States of America; this song from 1968 seems timeless www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx0U...

David Blunkett on Radio 4 Today programme saying "if you don't know what bread and dripping is, you don't know about what poverty is" takes me back ~60 years to what was my favourite food (had to be white bread ..), and to remember tripe and onions, heart, offal in general, and other delights

🚨 Rachel Reeves JUST unveiled “the most complex government budget in history.” But without a proper wealth tax we’ll never fix the NHS or fund schools properly. So we HACKED a billboard in her constituency with the real solution: TAX THE F*CKING RICH

Free book starting with how politics could consider happiness as an outcome (without resorting to slapstick)

ALSPAC is known locally as Children of the Nineties, now tagging them @childrenofthe90s.bsky.social

The UKB 1/2 million (of which I am one) are indeed reasonably investigated, but in comparison to the ALSPAC cohort - who were recruited as foetuses and followed up into middle age - what I've had done in UKB is tiny. ALSPAC has 3 generations too. We need both study types! www.bristol.ac.uk/alspac/

“A better NHS is possible”; Starmer’s Labour Party has sadly forgotten this. A better Labour Party is also possible!

“A better NHS is possible”; Starmer’s Labour Party has sadly forgotten this. A better Labour Party is also possible!

New paper on everyone’s favourite topic, QC! We show why you should do genotype-level QC on your WGS data www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Very real quotes about this paper - “The most exciting, mind-blowing paper of the year!” “On a par with Fisher 1918” “I read it every night. Just so beautiful”

Congratulations to Richard Durbin on being awarded our Genetics Society Medal!

Honoured to receive the 25th Anniversary MRC Millenium Medal. My mid-1980s epidemiological apprenticeship was at the MRC Epidemiology Unit in Cardiff in the mid-1980s, and my senescence with the MRC IEU, closing in March 2028 🙏 MRC! @ukri.org @uob-ieu.bsky.social www.ukri.org/news/mrc-mil...

Finally in Navi Mumbai located my favourite beer since first coming to work in India in 1992, it is increasingly difficult to find, and now often only the STRONG ~8% “premium” version the only one available

Reassuring to see a cow at a major road junction in Bangalore; after a third of a century of work trips to India most things have changed out of all recognition, but a silicon valley thriving bovine represents continuity

Reassuring to see a cow at a major road junction in Bangalore; after a third of a century of work trips to India most things have changed out of all recognition, but a silicon valley thriving bovine represents continuity

A special collection of 6 papers on cohort studies in China is just out in @bmj.com www.bmj.com/collections/... with an editorial on the collection and the current publication climate www.bmj.com/collections/...

Galton calling for data sharing in 1901 - does anyone know of earlier examples?

Are there earlier occurrences of groups being established to archive biological data to make them available for future analyses by researchers than this, which is from The British Association Committee on Biological Measurements, 1927?

Fantastic opportunity to lead the Equity Lab @wellcometrust.bsky.social working with the legendary Jimmy Volmink, details here wellcome.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-GB/Wellco... Please repost so as many as possible can see this great opportunity

Fantastic opportunity to lead the Equity Lab @wellcometrust.bsky.social working with the legendary Jimmy Volmink, details here wellcome.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-GB/Wellco... Please repost so as many as possible can see this great opportunity

Met @mendelrandom.bsky.social at a pub in Bristol after my talk yesterday to chat about causality, ratio variables, and the state of Epidemiology in Europe. Behind him, on the bookshelf, was an old copy of Mendel's Principles of Heredity. A remarkable coincidence that required a photograph!

TOMORROW IN BRISTOL! "Have DAGs fulfilled their promise in epidemiology and health research?" 📆 22 October ⏰ 13:00 - 14:00 📍Queens Building, 1.18LT at the University of Bristol Cc @bristoltarg.bsky.social @uob-ieu.bsky.social @mendelrandom.bsky.social @garethjgriffith.bsky.social

For the tech bros who are intending to live forever it must be a shock to hear the big crunch is gonna end it all in 20 billion years .. they'll still be in middle age then www.sciencealert.com/physicists-p...

For the tech bros who are intending to live forever it must be a shock to hear the big crunch is gonna end it all in 20 billion years .. they'll still be in middle age then www.sciencealert.com/physicists-p...

Do you have heavy or painful menstrual periods? If so, please consider filling in our short survey so that we can better understand how these symptoms interact with mental health and wellbeing. exe.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

Just replace dark chocolate for whatever the nutritional exposure in today's news story is in the below ieureka.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/2024/12/04/d...

Great to have @markmccarthy985.bsky.social at @uob-ieu.bsky.social giving a seminar tomorrow (Friday) at 12.30 online or in person www.bristol.ac.uk/integrative-...

Apply to do a PhD with me, Laura Corbin, Gareth Hawkes and George Davey Smith ( @mendelrandom.bsky.social) in Bristol on identifying rare effects on health using new and innovative methods. Amazing team, great educational environment, lovely city. Forward to your undergrads wrapping up!

"Triangulation: moving from correlations to causation", Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine Distinguished Lecture 2025, Thursday, October 16th, 5pm, in person or online www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/school-of-...

Mendelian randomization (MR) was partly a response to the many epidemiological studies suggesting vitamins were protective against various diseases, only for randomised trials to be null. The story of how fallacious MR attempted to resurrect the spurious claims here academic.oup.com/ije/article/...

A brilliant 1984 chapter in the "Encyclopaedia of Medical Ignorance" by Richard Peto anticipated much of the advances in understanding of cancer since then, and is now accessible in @SpringerNature European Journal of Epidemiology. A personal on it/ cont link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Mendelian randomization (MR) was partly a response to the many epidemiological studies suggesting vitamins were protective against various diseases, only for randomised trials to be null. The story of how fallacious MR attempted to resurrect the spurious claims here academic.oup.com/ije/article/...

This will be a great lecture from a brilliant and impactful epidemiologist

Seems like a good idea to me!

Great to see a joint 2026 SSM/IEA meeting, marking the 70th anniversary of SSM and one of the potential 70th anniversary dates for the IEA (though in 1956 it was called the International Corresponding Club). My first SSM & IEA conferences occurred closer to the founding dates than to today

Oh shit Ozzy Osborne just 10 years older than me and he had a relatively healthy lifestyle 😞