Archive for February, 2026
Caffeine helpful for brain health…or not—a mindbender
The other day I watched CBS News medical contributor Dr. Celine Gounder report new findings that drinking caffeinated coffee reduces the likelihood of dementia. She warned that this may be due to correlation, not causation—creating puzzled looks from the hosts. Then Dr. Gounder explained that individuals in poor physical and mental health will often be put on a diet that restricts caffeine. Aha!
It never ceases to amaze me how often people fall for correlation being causation. Here are some of my favorite examples:
- As I reported in a blog a few days before Christmas of 2012,* partygoers took advantage of a buy-one-get-one-free (BOGO) sale on a fine wine—paying $17 for one bottle and a nickel ($0.05) for the other. They drank the first bottle and thus worried greatly if it would be OK to bring the cheap wine to the party.
- Per Google’s AI, the most popular example of correlation versus causation is that ice cream sales and shark attacks both increase during the summer months. While they correlate, eating ice cream does not cause shark attacks; rather, a third variable—hotter weather—causes both, leading people to eat more ice cream and swim. Banning ice cream (addressing the correlation) would not reduce shark attacks (the causation), highlighting the mistake of assuming one directly causes the other.
- Most popular with statistics teachers—Umbrellas and wet streets both increase on rainy days, but umbrellas do not cause the streets to get wet.
- Being called in to troubleshoot processes at our manufacturing sites the operators explained to me that performance varied due to the phase of the moon.
“Cars with flames painted on the hood might get more speeding tickets. Are the flames making the car go fast? No. Certain things just go together. And when they do, they are correlated. It is the darling of all human errors to assume, without proper testing, that one is the cause of the other.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, Flight Behavior
But don’t become too skeptical about seemingly spurious connections between cause and effect, such as me questioning my daughter’s assertion that the color of otherwise identical flying disks affect their performance.
*Correlation of price of wine with the fineness of its taste–an absurd example
Downhill racing, like statistics, means never having to say you are certain
Immediately after starting my first process development as a chemical engineer in the summer of 1974 between my junior and senior years at University of Minnesota, I learned that the real world does not operate exactly as one would expect from the first principles of science learned in school. All my results varied, making it difficult to know what was real and what occurred due to chance. That led me to embrace statistics as preached by my supervisors at General Mills Chemical. (Thank goodness for the company’s agricultural heritage and thus an appreciation for the knowledge imparted by pioneering statistician Ronald Fisher to crop developers.) Thus, I can appreciate the randomness of Olympic results, particularly for downhill ski racers.
As explained by two-time gold medalist Ted Ligety in the New York Times, The Best Ski Racers Often Do Not Win Gold. Two days later Breezy Johnson won gold in downhill by only 0.04 seconds. (Sadly, this was the race where Minnesotan Lindsey Vonn crashed.) To provide some context, blink your eyes—this typically taking more than twice as long as the margin of Johnson’s victory.*
Ligety explains that the greatest women’s skier of all time, Mikaela Shiffrin, has won only 20% of her Olympic races, whereas Michael Phelps, the best swimmer ever, won over 75% of his Olympic races. He says this far greater uncertainty stems from variables such as wind, snow, light and ruts. By watching the audiovisual breakdown by Ligety et al (see for yourself by clicking the link above in you did not do so already), I gained a great appreciation of these and other factors affecting the outcome of any given race.
“If … a cloud comes and there’s super flat light … and … the girls in front of you had sun … that is going to make a huge difference. When you are in the start gate you have to go no matter what.”
– Trica Mangan, two-time U.S. Olympian
P.S. Along these lines of the razor’s edge separating skiers at Olympian levels, I highly recommend the classic 1969 movie “Downhill Racer” starring Robert Redford. After he died in September, I watched this for the first time. I highly recommend it. Gripping!
*Check out the amazing graphics theTimes provided after the race to See How Breezy Johnson Won
Bulky-bonneted NFL players—not a Super look
Posted by mark in sports, Uncategorized, Wellness on February 6, 2026
On Sunday the Seahawks play the Patriots in the Super Bowl. I will be on the lookout for any with oversize “bobbleheads”—a derisive term by J.J. Watt of the Cardinals for fellow players who wear Guardian Caps to protect themselves against concussions. The manufacturer of these soft-shell, foam-padded, helmet claims a 40% reduction in HARM—head acceleration response metric,* That is a very clever acronym, but does it really lessen brain trauma? The NFL thinks so, citing nearly 50% reduction in concussions for players wearing them. Many position players, for example, running backs and linebackers, must wear Guardian Caps during all practices involving contact—use in games remaining optional.
However, as recently reported by the New York Times,** “independent neurologists are generally skeptical, if not outright dismissive, of the benefits of any product claiming to reduce concussions because few rigorous studies have been done to demonstrate their effectiveness.” The rate of concussions in NFL preseason practices from 2018 to 2023—after the advent of Guardian Caps—declined between 54 and 62 percent. However, the statisticians who gathered the data admitted that the use of the protective covering did not significantly reduce concussions from helmet hits.
“There’s no question that every injury or injury reduction strategy is multifactorial.”
– Jeff Miller, NFL’s chief spokesman
I’ve suffered several concussions—the first one in 3rd or 4th grade (I forget) gym class diving at a dodge ball and smacking into the wall.
After that I joined a football team at a small playground that in my 8th grade made it to the Saint Paul City ‘superbowl’ the year of Superbowl I. However, every full contact practice and game caused me such headaches that I shifted over to playing ‘pickup’ touch football. This saved me (I hope) from persistent post-concussion syndrome turning into chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
Many years later playing with me buddies from General Mills Chemical R&D I knocked myself out diving for a softball hitting my noggin on a sprinkler head. (I am a bit too competitive at sports!)
My third concussion, the cause of which I’d rather not discuss, sent me to ER for dozens of stitches and a night in intensive care at Hennepin County Medical Center.
So, I can feel the pain and very much hope that further developments in head protection will protect contact-sports players of all ages from concussion and CTE.
*See their video on The Science Behind Guardian Caps
**“The Questionable Science Behind the Odd-Looking Football Helmets,” Ken Belson, Feb. 3, 2026.