[fermenflo]

My immediate reaction as well. Seems like the perfect case of confounding. But after reading the paper, I saw this statement:

> "High-fat milk consumers may have lifestyles that are less healthy than low-fat milk drinkers. Since this possibility was recognized before the onset of the investigation, statistical adjustments were made for a dozen potential confounders. Statistical analyses determined that these variables had little influence on the milk fat and telomere relationship. Nevertheless, other variables could explain some of the relationship between milk fat intake and telomere length identified in the present investigation."

They didn't go into great detail as to what those confounders were, but it looks like they took that into account and isolated milk-fat percentage as well as they could. Source: https://new.hindawi.com/journals/omcl/2019/1574021/

[eej71]

It sounds like one must still assume they correctly accounted for all confounders.

[fermenflo]

Exactly. As I said, they didn't reveal much of the process that "accounted for confounding" but I just wanted to dismiss everyone's initial reaction that this is just an obvious case of confounding.

Perhaps it is. Perhaps it isn't. It just depends on how much you trust their methodology.