Logical Reasoning

PT139 · S4 · Q5 Physiologist: The likelihood of developing

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Physiologist: The likelihood of developing osteoporosis is greatly increased by a deficiency of calcium in the diet.

Given that ...

Calcium deficiencies greatly increase the risk of osteoporosis,

and that ...

Dairy products usually have more calcium per serving than do fruits and veggies.

How can it be that ...

In countries were dairy is rare and fruits and veggies are common, the incidence of osteoporosis is much lower than in countries where they consume a lot of calcium from dairy?

Goal

We need a way to explain how people who are eating little dairy have a lower incidence of osteoporosis than are people eating a great deal of dairy (given that dairy has lots of calcium and calcium helps protect again the risk of osteoporosis).

5.

Which one of the following, if true, would most help to resolve the apparent discrepancy described by the physiologist?

  1. A healthy human body eventually

    No Impact

    It's possible that in countries where they eat a great deal of calcium from dairy, they actually eat more calcium than the body can utilize, so the body just excretes the rest of the calcium. Like maybe the human body can only use 10mg of calcium a day, and their dairy diets are giving them 15mg a day. That extra 5mg is just passing through their system and coming out in their waste. If the people living in the fruits/veggies countries are managing to get 10mg of calcium from their fruit/veggies, then they would tie the dairy people in terms of calcium absorbed. So this answer might have some power to explain why "eating a ton of dairy isn't associated with a lower incidence of osteoporosis" (i.e. you absorb the max calcium amount pretty quickly and just excrete the rest). But this answer has no power to explain why "eating a ton of dairy is associated with a higher incidence of osteoporosis." At best it can tell us how people eating fruits/veggies (rather than dairy) could do as well when it comes to osteoporosis, but doesn't provide a way to explain how they're doing better.

    1% picked this

  2. Many people who eat large

    No Impact

    This is a weakly worded answer. Many doesn't have a precise minimum, but "at least 5" works. So we're just learning that at least 5 people who eat a lot of fruits and veggies also consume dairy. Okay ... that doesn't help us explain why countries where they basically don't eat dairy have lower incidence of osteoporosis than countries eating lots of dairy.

    4% picked this

  3. There are more people who

    No Impact / No Distinction

    This is tallying up all the people in the world who have calcium deficiencies and all those who have developed osteoporosis and saying the former is bigger than the latter. That implies that at least some people who have a calcium deficiency don't develop osteoporosis. But we kind of already though that, since we were only told that calcium deficiency increased the likelihood of getting osteoporosis. We didn't think it would definitely cause the condition. More importantly, this makes no distinction between the dairy-free countries and the lots-of-dairy countries, so it doesn't help us explain the difference in rates of osteoporosis.

    5% picked this

  4. People who have calcium deficiencies

    No Impact / No Distinction

    This makes no distinction between the dairy-free countries and the lots-of-dairy countries, so it doesn't help us explain the difference in rates of osteoporosis. People in both countries can have calcium deficiencies. Presumably, more people would have such deficiencies in the countries that rarely eat dairy. So those people might be more likely to have deficiencies in other minerals (besides calcium). Who cares about other minerals?

    3% picked this

  5. Correct

    The fats in dairy products

    Why this is right

    This helps us explain why there's a higher incidence of osteoporosis in countries that eat lots of dairy. The fat in the dairy products being eaten tends to inhibit / prevent the body from absorbing the calcium that's in the dairy product. So if I live in dairy country and eat a pint of ice cream, I know there's 10 mg of calcium in that serving of ice cream. Unfortunately, the fat in the ice cream inhibits my body's ability to absorb the calcium, so even though I consume all 10 mg, most of it is just excreted rather than absorbed. Meanwhile, the people living in the fruit/veggie countries could be eating a serving of fruit/veggies that only has 5 mg of calcium in it. However, since fruit / veggies wouldn't have those fats in them, they potentially wouldn't inhibit the body's ability to absorb calcium. Thus, you could eat a serving of fruit/veggies and actually be 5 mg of calcium richer, whereas the person who ate the pint of ice cream didn't absorb any of the 10 mg of calcium that was in the ice cream. This allows us a way to explain how people in the fruit/veggie countries are actually absorbing more calcium. Meanwhile, people in the dairy countries aren't absorbing the calcium, thus they're more likely to have calcium deficiencies and thus more likely to develop osteoporosis.

    Skill tested: Paradox · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    87% picked this

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