But of course frequent dancing is regular exercise. So, on reflection, the true causal effect could be on the order of 76% (though probably less). However, I predict it won’t be substantially more than the true causal effect of regular exercise in general.
From the study: “The physical-activity score was not significantly associated with dementia, either when analyzed as a continuous variable or when the study cohort was divided into thirds according to this score ”
That’s what I get for running my mouth without looking at the paper. Skimming it now, the “dancing [was] associated with a reduced risk of dementia” result smells like multiple testing throwing up spurious crap. There’s a dementia hazard ratio listed for 9 physical activities, and the ratio for dancing was the only one that was “significant” — but it’s only barely significant as the confidence interval goes from 0.06 to 0.99! And the hazard ratios for the other physical activities are all over the place, half of them less than 1.00, half of them at least 1.00. There doesn’t seem to be any real evidence of an association between exercise & dementia, taking this paper as a whole.
From the study: “The physical-activity score was not significantly associated with dementia, either when analyzed as a continuous variable or when the study cohort was divided into thirds according to this score ”
That’s what I get for running my mouth without looking at the paper. Skimming it now, the “dancing [was] associated with a reduced risk of dementia” result smells like multiple testing throwing up spurious crap. There’s a dementia hazard ratio listed for 9 physical activities, and the ratio for dancing was the only one that was “significant” — but it’s only barely significant as the confidence interval goes from 0.06 to 0.99! And the hazard ratios for the other physical activities are all over the place, half of them less than 1.00, half of them at least 1.00. There doesn’t seem to be any real evidence of an association between exercise & dementia, taking this paper as a whole.