Causalidad y regulación: algunas dificultades de los ensayos controlados aleatorizados

Abstract

The article focuses on the key importance of causality in regulatory activities in the social sciences and especially in nutrition. After a brief presentation (Sec. 1), the text proposes several ways of examining the notion of cause and of conceiving it from a philosophical perspective (Sec. 2). Section 3 particularly discusses the counterfactual way, understood as a broad approach to conceiving causation in terms of its relationship to randomized controlled trials (RCT) and, by derivation, to the objective character of the latter. Section 4 examines the evidence underlying RCTs and the role they play in regulation. Evidences are linked to causal statements that are usual in RCTs and whose nature is not exempt from a criticism in areas such as the evidence-based medicine (EBM) (Sec. 5) and, above all, nutritional sciences (Sec. 6). In Section 7, it is claimed a plural methodological perspective that would improve the production of results in nutrition that would act as a basis for making regulatory decisions. The last section closes the argument of the article.