I haven't read most of this thread, but just to toss in my half a cent: You can't determine causality based on a correlational study. That is to say, you can't say "A has a positive relationship with B, therefore A causes B." It doesn't work like that, and those kinds of results aren't accepted in any scientific circle.

In order to determine causality, you'd have to do a true experiment in a controlled environment, which is impossible to do with that kind of theory.