Reviewer's report
Title:An association between colonic adenoma and abdominal obesity : A cross
sectional study.
Version: 4Date:25 September 2008
Reviewer: Anette Hjartåker
Reviewer's report:
Major comments
1. In its present version this manuscript has several weaknesses. First, the new
information provided by the study could favorably be compressed to a short
communication. Second, the language needs to be thoroughly revised. The
message of several of the sentences is difficult to grasp due to poor language
(e.g. 3rd sentence of the Result section in the abstract).
2. If the authors do not want to write a short communication, I suggest adding
additional analysis. It could for instance be of interest to perform the analysis not
only according to waist circumference, but also to BMI throughout the paper.
Also, the data could be analyzed according to the size and the number of polyps.
3. The authors analyze the differences in basal characteristics between cases
and controls by paired t-tests. This is wrong. The observations are independent
and should be analyzed by means of two sample (unpaired) tests (if the variables
are satisfactory normally distributed). This error needs to be corrected in all parts
of the manuscript.
Minor comments
1. Method section, subjects: Did all 1187 subjects undergo colonoscopy? How
many of these had a polyp?
2. Result section, last paragraph: The last three sentences are not related to the
hypothesis under study. Rather the authors should focus on anthropometric
variables as suggested above.
3. Discussion: The paragraph starting with “previously, many…”, on the whole,
only repeat what is already said in the discussion and could be deleted (or
shortened).
4. References: Please correct the abbreviation for reference no 2.
5. Table 1: Two digits for the p-values are enough (if above 0.01). If the p-value
is below 0.001, please write p < 0.001 (not 0.000). (But all the values are subject
to change when unpaired tests are performed).
6. Table 3: Units for all the variables in the model need to be added. Are all
variables except sex and smoking added to the model as continuous variables?
Are the conditions for using continuous variables met? Further, for the nutritional
variables it could be better to provide the odds ratio for an increase in energy
intake of e.g. 100 kcal/d and for an increase of fat of e.g. 10 g/d. The column with
p-values can be deleted.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Not suitable for publication unless extensively edited
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
Reviewer's report
Title:An association between colonic adenoma and abdominal obesity : A cross
sectional study.
Version: 4Date:25 September 2008
Reviewer: Anette Hjartåker
Reviewer's report:
Major comments
1. In its present version this manuscript has several weaknesses. First, the new
information provided by the study could favorably be compressed to a short
communication. Second, the language needs to be thoroughly revised. The
message of several of the sentences is difficult to grasp due to poor language
(e.g. 3rd sentence of the Result section in the abstract).
2. If the authors do not want to write a short communication, I suggest adding
additional analysis. It could for instance be of interest to perform the analysis not
only according to waist circumference, but also to BMI throughout the paper.
Also, the data could be analyzed according to the size and the number of polyps.
3. The authors analyze the differences in basal characteristics between cases
and controls by paired t-tests. This is wrong. The observations are independent
and should be analyzed by means of two sample (unpaired) tests (if the variables
are satisfactory normally distributed). This error needs to be corrected in all parts
of the manuscript.
Minor comments
1. Method section, subjects: Did all 1187 subjects undergo colonoscopy? How
many of these had a polyp?
2. Result section, last paragraph: The last three sentences are not related to the
hypothesis under study. Rather the authors should focus on anthropometric
variables as suggested above.
3. Discussion: The paragraph starting with “previously, many…”, on the whole,
only repeat what is already said in the discussion and could be deleted (or
shortened).
4. References: Please correct the abbreviation for reference no 2.
5. Table 1: Two digits for the p-values are enough (if above 0.01). If the p-value
is below 0.001, please write p < 0.001 (not 0.000). (But all the values are subject
to change when unpaired tests are performed).
6. Table 3: Units for all the variables in the model need to be added. Are all
variables except sex and smoking added to the model as continuous variables?
Are the conditions for using continuous variables met? Further, for the nutritional
variables it could be better to provide the odds ratio for an increase in energy
intake of e.g. 100 kcal/d and for an increase of fat of e.g. 10 g/d. The column with
p-values can be deleted.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Not suitable for publication unless extensively edited
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
Please review this paper.
user
Reviewer's report
Title:An association between colonic adenoma and abdominal obesity : A cross
sectional study.
Version: 4Date:25 September 2008
Reviewer: Anette Hjartåker
Reviewer's report:
Major comments
1. In its present version this manuscript has several weaknesses. First, the new
information provided by the study could favorably be compressed to a short
communication. Second, the language needs to be thoroughly revised. The
message of several of the sentences is difficult to grasp due to poor language
(e.g. 3rd sentence of the Result section in the abstract).
2. If the authors do not want to write a short communication, I suggest adding
additional analysis. It could for instance be of interest to perform the analysis not
only according to waist circumference, but also to BMI throughout the paper.
Also, the data could be analyzed according to the size and the number of polyps.
3. The authors analyze the differences in basal characteristics between cases
and controls by paired t-tests. This is wrong. The observations are independent
and should be analyzed by means of two sample (unpaired) tests (if the variables
are satisfactory normally distributed). This error needs to be corrected in all parts
of the manuscript.
Minor comments
1. Method section, subjects: Did all 1187 subjects undergo colonoscopy? How
many of these had a polyp?
2. Result section, last paragraph: The last three sentences are not related to the
hypothesis under study. Rather the authors should focus on anthropometric
variables as suggested above.
3. Discussion: The paragraph starting with “previously, many…”, on the whole,
only repeat what is already said in the discussion and could be deleted (or
shortened).
4. References: Please correct the abbreviation for reference no 2.
5. Table 1: Two digits for the p-values are enough (if above 0.01). If the p-value
is below 0.001, please write p < 0.001 (not 0.000). (But all the values are subject
to change when unpaired tests are performed).
6. Table 3: Units for all the variables in the model need to be added. Are all
variables except sex and smoking added to the model as continuous variables?
Are the conditions for using continuous variables met? Further, for the nutritional
variables it could be better to provide the odds ratio for an increase in energy
intake of e.g. 100 kcal/d and for an increase of fat of e.g. 10 g/d. The column with
p-values can be deleted.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Not suitable for publication unless extensively edited
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
assistant