LukeStebbing comments on Living Forever is Hard, or, The Gompertz Curve - Less Wrong

46 Post author: gwern 17 May 2011 09:08PM

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Comment author: gwern 17 January 2012 02:28:21AM 3 points [-]

I'll try again: your original cite said the cancer benefit was detectable at 5 years, and later. I've presented you with a 4 times larger study, in the relevant subpopulation, at 6 years which found no cancer benefit - and you are still asking rhetorical questions and coming up with excuses.

Do you think that if you had seen the evidence the other way around that you would be asking the same questions?

Comment author: LukeStebbing 17 January 2012 05:32:57AM *  3 points [-]

No matter which study I saw first, the other would be surprising. A 100k trial doesn't explain away evidence from eight trials totaling 25k. Given that all of these studies are quite large, I'm more concerned about methodological flaws than size.

I have very slightly increased my estimate that aspirin reduces cancer mortality (since the new study showed 7% reduction, and that certainly isn't evidence against mortality reduction). I have slightly decreased my estimate that the mortality reduction is as strong as concluded by the meta-analysis. I have decreased my estimate that the risk tradeoff will be worth it later in life. I have very slightly increased my estimate that sick people are generally more likely to develop cancer and aspirin is especially good at preventing that kind of cancer, but I mention that only because it's an amusingly weird explanation.

If this new study is continued with similar results, or even if its data doesn't show increased reduction when sliced by quartile (4.6, 6.0, 7.4 years), I would significantly lower my estimate of the mortality reduction.

I'll continue to take low-dose aspirin since my present risk of bleeding death is very low, and if the graphs of cumulative cancer mortality reduction on p34 of the meta-analysis reflect reality, I'll be banking resistance to cancer toward a time when I'm much more likely to need it. I can't decide to take low-dose aspirin retroactively.

Comment author: gwern 17 January 2012 03:56:32PM 1 point [-]

A 100k trial doesn't explain away evidence from eight trials totaling 25k.

It doesn't have to, since they are not trials involving the same populations.