Researchers from The Children's Hospital Westmead in Sydney, Australia released a study that confirmed not only how infants die from sudden infant death syndrome, but why.
I wish the initial article did a better job of breaking down exactly what was found and why it was significant.
Conditional logistic regression showed that in groups where cases were reported as “SIDS death” there was strong evidence that lower BChE specific activity (BChEsa) was associated with death (OR=0·73 per U/mg, 95% CI 0·60-0·89, P=0·0014), whereas in groups with a “Non-SIDS death” as the case there was no evidence of a linear association between BChEsa and death (OR=1·001 per U/mg, 95% CI 0·89-1·13, P=0·99).
So yes, this does look like a strong correlation. And being able to identify "at-risk" infants, and to provide medical support for them accordingly, is a huge benefit both in terms of reducing infant mortality and managing medical resources (nice not to treat every baby like they're at risk of SIDS when you can narrow the pool down).
But the original article doesn't clarify what the degree of risk actually is, how its screened, or what parents/physicians can do with the information. The article turns very useful information into mere trivia. Very frustrating, particularly to someone who is currently caring for a 3 month old.
Butyrylcholinesterase is a potential biomarker for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome
I wish the initial article did a better job of breaking down exactly what was found and why it was significant.
So yes, this does look like a strong correlation. And being able to identify "at-risk" infants, and to provide medical support for them accordingly, is a huge benefit both in terms of reducing infant mortality and managing medical resources (nice not to treat every baby like they're at risk of SIDS when you can narrow the pool down).
But the original article doesn't clarify what the degree of risk actually is, how its screened, or what parents/physicians can do with the information. The article turns very useful information into mere trivia. Very frustrating, particularly to someone who is currently caring for a 3 month old.