Don't get me wrong, as a hypothesis, I think it's fascinating. I do agree with everything you all have said. I just get very frustrated with studies that spend a great deal of time and money yet do not seem to be very well focused or well designed. (I admit that I haven't read the studies themselves so my concerns may well be the result of a poorly written article and not the study itself.) My problem is that it seems like the statistical significance of the results is dependent on measurements (like BMI) that I just don't think are valuable/valid enough on their own to be both relevant and significant.

I wish I could find the actual studies this article is based on, but I don't really feel up to searching for them tonight. As you said, Liz, correlation does not equal causation. And I don't feel like they have shown that they eliminated enough other variables (like BF% or fitness levels or fat distribution or any of a million other things) such that the BMI stuff would be valuable in and of itself. So I'm kinda left wondering, what's the point? At least they say they're going to do further research. I do hope it eventually leads to good things, I just want the good science sooner!

Please excuse my cynical rambling, did not have a good day and I'm tired.