Hah! Good one, Jaime. I see this use of "lower mortality" all the time in research reports, especially medical research.
It really means that during the study period, fewer subjects who consumed nuts died than those who didn't eat nuts.
[snip]
During 3,038,853 person-years of follow-up,16,200 women and 11,229 men died.
Compared with participants who did not eat nuts at all, those who ate nuts less than once per week had a 7% decrease in mortality risk (pooled multivariate hazard ratio [HR], 0.93; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.90 - 0.96), after adjustment for other known or suspected risk factors, including total sodium intake, adherence to a Mediterranean diet, and olive oil intake. Pooled multivariate HRs were 0.89 (95% CI, 0.86 - 0.93) for eating nuts once per week, 0.87 (95% CI, 0.83 - 0.90) for 2 to 4 times per week, 0.85 (95% CI, 0.79 - 0.91) for 5 to 6 times per week, and 0.80 (95% CI, 0.73 - 0.86) for 7 or more times per week (P < .001 for trend).
There were also significant inverse associations between nut consumption and deaths resulting from cancer, heart disease, and respiratory disease.
Hah! Good one, Jaime. I see this use of "lower mortality" all the time in research reports, especially medical research.
It really means that during the study period, fewer subjects who consumed nuts died than those who didn't eat nuts.
[snip]
During 3,038,853 person-years of follow-up,16,200 women and 11,229 men died.
Compared with participants who did not eat nuts at all, those who ate nuts less than once per week had a 7% decrease in mortality risk (pooled multivariate hazard ratio [HR], 0.93; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.90 - 0.96), after adjustment for other known or suspected risk factors, including total sodium intake, adherence to a Mediterranean diet, and olive oil intake. Pooled multivariate HRs were 0.89 (95% CI, 0.86 - 0.93) for eating nuts once per week, 0.87 (95% CI, 0.83 - 0.90) for 2 to 4 times per week, 0.85 (95% CI, 0.79 - 0.91) for 5 to 6 times per week, and 0.80 (95% CI, 0.73 - 0.86) for 7 or more times per week (P < .001 for trend).
There were also significant inverse associations between nut consumption and deaths resulting from cancer, heart disease, and respiratory disease.