As nice as this statistical thinking alone is, it can also slow things down.

There's a reason why this finding is valuable. It suggests a mechanistic hypothesis that bacteria are entering the bloodstream, heart, and passing the blood-brain barrier.

This is a very valuable line of investigation that can lead to a smoking gun for one class of casual mechanisms and potentially to preventative care or treatment.

If we blindly follow just the statistics, we'd never get any real science done.

Correlation does not imply causation. But when it gives you something to investigate, don't sit on it.