The Art of Statistics …

One might argue that Statistics is a science – after all, it is statistical mathematics that scientists use to support or disprove their theories. But statistics are also used by economists (run away), accountants (keep running) and politicians (you just aren’t running fast enough). I’m afraid statistics can be more than just skewed…they are easily fiddled with and misunderstood. Just a careful choosing of your subject population can ruin the validity of your statistics; the question “Do you believe in sex before marriage?” will get a much different result if asked in a Christian college than it would from a study in a hippie-type commune.

Now, I am the first to admit that I find statistics baffling. But I did study the art at university, and have learnt to ‘read’ the stories behind the art. And a very creative art it is, to be sure…

The Thin Edge of the Wedge

I’m sure we have all heard the news that chubby people live longer than people with a normal body weight. You haven’t heard? Then let me bring you up to speed: The Centres for Disease Control and the National Cancer Institute in the United States analysed death rates and body mass index, and discovered that people who were a little overweight lived longer than those people of a normal body weight, and much longer than people who were obese or underweight. So statistics based on their calculations had excess weight dropping from the second leading cause of preventable death - after smoking - to seventh.

Now, isn’t that good news for most of us? Just don’t start partying yet…

It’s how you read these statistics that is important. The research was based on a measurement called the Body Mass Index (BMI), which is calculated by dividing a person's weight in kilograms by the square of their height in metres. A BMI of 18.5 to 25 is considered normal – and the important word in that sentence is the ‘considered’. For the record, a BMI below 18.5 is considered underweight and 30 or above is considered obese. The BMI is not an accurate reading of an individual’s health, but an approximation; so the study should be accepted with a grain of salt, just to start with.

As well, medical advances since the Seventies means that slightly overweight people have the benefits of a healthier lifestyle combined with better medical treatments for weight-related diseases. After all, if you have bad cholesterol, you can take medications that control the problem. These medications are of little assistance if you are obese or underweight, as you are at risk of more than mild ailments.

People in the normal weight range do not visit their doctors as frequently as the slightly overweight, and so may have medical problems that are not detected as early. Even young, athletic people may not be as healthy as they appear – it is just assumed that they have everything in perfect working order. Sadly, young, athletic people drop dead of unsuspected heart problems or other diseases all the time, because they haven’t thought it necessary to have a yearly check-up.

These days, the majority of Americans are overweight or obese, with a ‘normal’ body weight becoming the exception rather than the rule. This alone should obscure the statistics, if they don’t skew them completely!

So, you can see that this issue is more complex than you might have suspected…

The Cure for Cancer

Now let us look at the more positive aspects for statistics.

Cancer isn’t a single disease, but a group made up of 200 different diseases. Since the Eighties, thanks to tireless research, survival rates have doubled and now two thirds of all cancer sufferers will beat the disease. The other side of that coin: one third will die. In Australia, more females survive cancer than men. I believe this is directly related to which gender visits the doctor more readily; men try to be stoic and ignore symptoms that should have them scuttling to their GP. But, overall, the statistics are encouraging.

So back to the topic at hand…

As reported in the Courier Mail, the 19th of April: Andrew von Eschenbach, 63, a urologist who has survived three bouts of cancer, made his assertion to the American Association of Cancer Research in Anaheim, California. "This is something you've never heard before," he told 16,000 leading cancer specialists. "By 2015, we can eliminate cancer suffering and death."

Now, if you were paying attention in the first half of this article…more Americans die from smoking-related diseases than anything else. Was the good doctor talking about cancer prevention or cancer cure? The article doesn’t say, and I could find any more details after a quick surf of the Internet. I’m betting he is talking about a cancer cure – I can’t see America or Australia outlawing smoking all together in the next twenty years.

Still, the mechanisms of cancer are now beginning to be recognised and understood, and in the near future, human beings will probably be able to interrupt these processes to prevent cancer from forming. This won’t stop smokers dying from other smoking-related diseases, but it will stop them dying from lung, tongue and throat cancer. I wonder if this will knock smoking off as the leading cause of preventable death.

Well, at least cancer will stop casting its destructive shadow over mankind. That is one statistic I will be very glad to see.

But, as you may have gathered, the use of statistics isn’t as clear cut as they may first seem. You have to dig into their real meaning to understand them. So, the next time you read about something and they present statistics to back their argument…try to read into the real truth behind the numbers. Like, who is paying for recording of the statistics, is the sample population random, or too small to be really relevant? You may surprise yourself with your answer!