Is it safe to say that obesity is a risk factor for diabetes but not a cause?
In: Other
Usually to deem something a “cause” you need a process that leads from the cause to effect. This is a pretty strict requirement especially with complex biological processes with many factors.
Most of the time, since experimentation is limited (ie you shouldn’t cause harm), researchers can observe limited samples and attempt to correlate diseases to likely factors. Gathering this data only results in establishing correlation. Correlation does not imply causality. So the precise term when there is a high correlation is consider the factor a “risk factor”.
Until the underlying processes are well understood, a factor should not be considered a cause. Eg we now know that bacterias can cause disease because we know how it works.
Latest Answers