Could certain limitations and possible biases have attenuated a true positive association?
First, misclassification due to inaccurate measurement may have attenuated the true association.
The imprecise measurement of consumption might have attenuated the true associations.
This could have lead to a classification bias and could have attenuated the true associations with physical examination.
The exposure misclassification was likely nondifferential with respect to the outcome and might thus have attenuated the true relationships.
Such misclassification might accordingly have attenuated the true association, which might in turn have explained our results, at least in part.
However, greater likelihood of aspirin use in the control group would only have attenuated the true risk estimate, rather than produced spurious associations.
These misclassifications due to inaccurate measurement would in turn have attenuated the true association, which might be one reason for our results.
Moreover, since information on exposures was collected prospectively, any non-differential misclassification would most likely have attenuated any true relationships and is unlikely to explain the observed associations.
