Leviton, A. Biases Inherent in Studies of Coffee Consumption in Early Pregnancy and the Risks of Subsequent Events. Nutrients2018, 10, 1152.
Leviton, A. Biases Inherent in Studies of Coffee Consumption in Early Pregnancy and the Risks of Subsequent Events. Nutrients 2018, 10, 1152.
Leviton, A. Biases Inherent in Studies of Coffee Consumption in Early Pregnancy and the Risks of Subsequent Events. Nutrients2018, 10, 1152.
Leviton, A. Biases Inherent in Studies of Coffee Consumption in Early Pregnancy and the Risks of Subsequent Events. Nutrients 2018, 10, 1152.
Abstract
Consumption of coffee by women early in their pregnancy has been viewed as potentially increasing the risk of miscarriage, low birth weight, and childhood leukemias. Many of these reports of epidemiologic studies have not acknowledged the potential biases inherent in studying the relationship between early-pregnancy-coffee consumption and subsequent events. I discuss five of these biases, recall bias, misclassification, residual confounding, reverse causation, and publication bias. Each might account for claims that attribute adversities to early-pregnancy-coffee consumption. To what extent these biases can be avoided remains to be determined. At a minimum, they need to be acknowledged wherever they might account for what is reported.
Medicine and Pharmacology, Obstetrics and Gynaecology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
