Some people with hypercholestrolemia, a severe genetic condition leading to extreme circulating cholesterol levels, benefit significantly from statins and reduced cholesterol diet. The unfortunate problem, is there are too few people with this condition, so the drug companies just filled in the cholesterol/negative outcome population curve all the way down to normal levels of cholesterol. Voila! Look at the clear health benefit statins provide. Now, millions of people can be treated with statins.

Rarely are the populations of clinical trials scrutinized as deeply as the data of the trial itself. Truthful representative sampling is critical to a meaningful interpretation of results.

Lesson: Statistics are often misinterpreted when pockets can be filled. However, the scientific community pushed the FDA to utilize standardized statistical testing. So now a hungry drug company must use statistics that are correct; however, clever sampling methods skew the results towards a statistically relevant observation.

23&Me has a goldmine of data on how to build your study population for your needed outcome. It’s going to get worse before it gets better. DYOR.