Deaths from falling out of bed in the US

As probiotic sales have grown, bed-fall deaths have risen, a correlation of 0.987 that adds gut health to the infinite catalog of things that correlate with elderly Americans rolling off their mattresses. The bacteria flourish, the body falls, and the coefficient achieves another entry in what is becoming this website's longest-running series. Coming soon: bed-fall deaths vs. literally everything else that grew since 2005.

Probiotic sales grew to over 3.2 billion dollars. Bed-fall deaths rose with the aging population. Seventeen years, both up, same result as every other bed-fall correlation. The probiotic consumers and the bed-fall victims are different demographics. The coefficient is a product of shape, not biology. The gut flora and the mattress edge are unrelated.

Seventeen years of probiotics and bed falls is the latest installment in the bed-fall correlation franchise—a series that now includes craft beer, organic food, student debt, atmospheric CO2, and approximately everything else that grew during the same period. The cultures multiply, the body falls, and the chart achieves the same 0.99 it always achieves because the aging population is the universal correlator. The bed rail remains the only intervention that matters.