George Davey Smith

TL;DR: Smoking and drinking 15+ units/week was the riskiest behaviour for all causes of death and adjusting for a wide range of confounders attenuated the relative rates but the effects of alcohol and smoking still remained.

TL;DR: Author(s): Felix, Janine F; Joubert, Bonnie R; Baccarelli, Andrea A; Sharp, Gemma C; Almqvist, Catarina; Annesi-Maesano, Isabella; Arshad, Hasan; Baiz, Nour; Bakermans-Kranenburg, Marian J; Bakulski, Kelly M; Binder, Elisabeth B; Bouchard, Luigi; Breton, Carrie V.

TL;DR: It is demonstrated that both heritability and genetic correlation may be biased estimates of the causal contribution of genotype, and use of these methods in combination with family-based designs may offer researchers greater opportunities to explore the mechanisms driving genotype-phenotype associations.

TL;DR: The authors of the meta-analysis reprinted in this issue of the International Journal of Epidemiology concluded that the pooled estimate of effect from the best quality observational studies inferred a relative reduction of 50% with ever use of HRT and stated that ‘overall, the bulk of the evidence strongly supports a protective effect of estrogens that is unlikely to be explained by confounding factors’.

TL;DR: Six novel loci (FAM150B-ACP1, LINC00340, FBN1, DIS3L-MAP2K1, ARID2-SNAT1 and SLC14A2) associated with refractive error are identified and represent an important advance in understanding how gene and environment interactions contribute to the heterogeneity of myopia.