Esther12
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Related to, and following on from, a 2009 Chalder study that was discussed here: http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...rental-expectations-of-their-childs-iq.22629/
The prospective association between childhood cognitive ability and somatic symptoms and syndromes in adulthood: the 1958 British birth cohort
I wonder if they'd consider a similarly sized finding to be just chance if it had supported their hypothesis? I'm not sure I remember having ever read a paper where a significant finding in support of the researchers hypothesis was suggested to be a matter of chance.
Their summary of the paper:
Paper was generally tedious, trying to avoid saying 'we don't know what we're talking about, but have lumped together loads of patients under pointless labels to help us sound like experts... here are some weak associations that we can spin a story from'.
'The aetiology of... oh, it's all a load of bollocks. Who do we think we're kidding?'
The prospective association between childhood cognitive ability and somatic symptoms and syndromes in adulthood: the 1958 British birth cohort
- Eva M Kingma1,
- Judith G M Rosmalen1,
- Peter D White2,
- Stephen A Stansfeld2,
- Charlotte Clark2
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24022814
So they thought less bright children would be more likely to end up with CFS, and found:Abstract
Background Cognitive ability is negatively associated with functional somatic symptoms (FSS) in childhood. Lower childhood cognitive ability might also predict FSS and functional somatic syndromes in adulthood. However, it is unknown whether this association would be modified by subjective and objective measures of parental academic expectations.
Methods 14 068 participants from the 1958 British birth cohort, whose cognitive ability was assessed at 11 years. Outcomes were somatic symptoms at 23, 33 and 42 years. Self-reported irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME) and operationally defined CFS-like illness were measured at 42 years.
Results Lower cognitive ability at age 11 years was associated with somatic symptoms at ages 23, 33 and 42 years. Adjusting for sex, childhood internalising problems, previous somatic symptoms and concurrent psychological symptoms, childhood cognitive ability remained negatively associated with somatic symptoms at age 23 years (β=−0.060, 95% CI −0.081 to −0.039, p<0.01), 33 years (β = −0.031, 95% CI −0.050 to −0.011, p<0.01), but not with somatic symptoms at 42 years. Overall, we found no clear association between lower childhood cognitive ability and CFS/ME, CFS-like illness and IBS. Associations between cognitive ability and somatic symptoms at 23 years were moderated by low parental social class, but not by subjective indicators of parental academic expectations.
Conclusions Lower childhood cognitive ability predicted somatic symptoms, but not CFS/ME, CFS-like illness and IBS in adulthood. While earlier research indicated an important role for high parental academic expectations in the development of early-life FSS, these expectations do not seem relevant for somatic symptoms or functional somatic syndromes in later adulthood.
We found an association between higher cognitive ability and self-reported CFS/ME, which was in contrast to our hypothesis. Since the association was only found when additionally adjusting for psychological symptoms and since it was rather small, we might consider this as a chance finding.
I wonder if they'd consider a similarly sized finding to be just chance if it had supported their hypothesis? I'm not sure I remember having ever read a paper where a significant finding in support of the researchers hypothesis was suggested to be a matter of chance.
Their summary of the paper:
What this study adds?
- This study supports the findings that lower cognitive ability in childhood precedes the development of FSS many years later in adulthood.
- While earlier research indicated an important role for high parental academic expectations in the development of early-life FSS, these expectations do not seem relevant for somatic symptoms or functional somatic syndromes in later adulthood.
- Psychological symptoms also play a role in the association between childhood cognitive ability and adulthood somatic symptoms.
- Further studies of factors that might explain the association between childhood cognitive ability and FSS in adulthood, such as coping strategies and psychological distress, should be conducted to inform preventive interventions for FSS.
Paper was generally tedious, trying to avoid saying 'we don't know what we're talking about, but have lumped together loads of patients under pointless labels to help us sound like experts... here are some weak associations that we can spin a story from'.
The aetiology of FSS is poorly understood, but FSS are known to result from multifactorial processes, including complex interactions between biological, psychological and social vulnerability factors.8–10
'The aetiology of... oh, it's all a load of bollocks. Who do we think we're kidding?'
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