Assuming their math and design are good, this is pretty strong, as these things go. But there were a lot of other things that were different between the groups that could reasonably be affecting results.
The article itself is careful to deny drawing any prescriptive conclusions from this research — a tacit acknowledgement that the causal connection isn’t entirely clear.
This is interesting and fairly strong, and potentially important, but definitely needs more work before we start acting on it.
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It’s really not experimental though.
Assuming their math and design are good, this is pretty strong, as these things go. But there were a lot of other things that were different between the groups that could reasonably be affecting results.
The article itself is careful to deny drawing any prescriptive conclusions from this research — a tacit acknowledgement that the causal connection isn’t entirely clear.
This is interesting and fairly strong, and potentially important, but definitely needs more work before we start acting on it.
*Quasi-experimental, see my comment below. Excuse the sloppy language, it's a while since I've done one.
It's not as good as an RCT, but lifetime sugar consumption, as the article points out, is not something you can randomise.