Scientific Clarification?

Question

Do you know how to translate this scientific jargon in the everyday percentage numbers?

Here's the sentence, and I need to know what the numbers 0.46, 0.59, 2.47, 1.46 mean as far as percentages:

"High daily intakes of water (five or more glasses) compared with low (two or fewer glasses) were associated with a relative risk in men of 0.46 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.28, 0.75; p trend = 0.001) and, in women, of 0.59 (95% CI: 0.36, 0.97). A high versus low intake of fluids other than water was associated with a relative risk of 2.47 (95% CI: 1.04, 5.88) in women and of 1.46 (95% CI: 0.7, 3.03) in men."

Answer 1

Relative risk is a ratio that compares the likelihood of an event in 2 different populations. 1 basically means that both groups have the same risk. Because the first 2 numbers are less than 1, it means that drinking water in both groups decreases the risk of whatever it is you are measuring. The second 2 numbers are >1 so they increase the risk of whatever was measured.

Answer 2

Multiply the decimals by 100 and affix a % to the end. So 1.00 is 100%, 0.564 is 56.4%. Basically it's a relative number, and each is relative to the norm, so the norm is assigned a value of 1. Therefore, 2.47 is 247% of 1, so the percentage is 247%.