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No need to cut down red and processed meat, study says
Most people can continue to eat red and processed meat as they do now. A major study led by researchers at McMaster and Dalhousie universities has found cutting back has little impact on health.
A panel of international scientists systematically reviewed the evidence and have recommended that most adults should continue to eat their current levels of red and processed meat.
The researchers performed four systematic reviews focused on randomized controlled trials and observational studies looking at the impact of red meat and processed meat consumption on cardiometabolic and cancer outcomes.
In one review of 12 trials with 54,000 people, the researchers did not find statistically significant or an important association between meat consumption and the risk of heart disease, diabetes or cancer.
In three systematic reviews of cohort studies following millions of people, a very small reduction in risk among those who had three fewer servings of red or processed meat a week, but the association was uncertain.
The authors also did a fifth systematic review looking at people's attitudes and health-related values around eating red and processed meats. They found people eat meat because they see it as healthy, they like the taste and they are reluctant to change their diet.
The five systematic reviews, a recommendation and an editorial on the topic were published in the Annals of Internal Medicine today.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday October 02 2019, @08:03AM (12 children)
...for the animals.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Bot on Wednesday October 02 2019, @08:28AM (11 children)
There is no ethical problem IMHO with requiring the death of an individual to feed another. Plants steal sunlight to each other's, vegetarians eat plants, carnivores eat vegetarians, and meatbags finally settle the score,.
The problem is in the way those poor beasts get slaughtered after pointless travel. And let us not mention the way some religions prescribe to kill them.
.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday October 02 2019, @08:36AM (9 children)
Well death comes to all living organisms eventually, so why not wait until they die naturally before consuming them? If you're worried about an infectious disease being the cause of death, an autopsy could be performed, or you could consider that there's no guarantee the animal is disease free when it's brought to a premature end.
I also submit that except for humans living in inhospitable and inaccessible regions of the globe, the death of an animal isn't strictly required to feed the human, more desired than required, since the human certainly could survive on plant matter.
Your other points I quite agree with.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by choose another one on Wednesday October 02 2019, @09:13AM (3 children)
There's no guarantee of anything beyond death and taxes. There is, however, a lot you can do, or not do, to make certain outcomes less likely (which is, after all, what this article was about). In some cases there are very good reasons, based on sound science and statistics, for excluding older animals from the human food chain. In fact in most cases if an animal has died before we kill it, it cannot legally go for meat, period.
(Score: 4, Informative) by FatPhil on Wednesday October 02 2019, @11:49AM
That's the name of my Goth band.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday October 02 2019, @06:42PM (1 child)
More's the pity. One technique that circumvents the disease worry is that of living on roadkill. I approve of the humans adopting that philosophy. Also on that subject I have to say that many instances of roadkill could and indeed should have been avoided to begin with.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Thursday October 03 2019, @09:12AM
Trauma deaths are one of the exceptions - practically if not legally.
Trouble with road kill is usually the damage and low quality as a result, but adopting it as a philosophy has other issues, the main one being there wouldn't be enough to go round (as well as the one about if we get better at avoiding it and thereby saving animals, we wouldn't have any to eat).
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday October 02 2019, @01:26PM (3 children)
Define naturally?
In nature, most animals (and plants) die of disease or predation. Ecosystems naturally fill up, and once full there is no place for the weak, infirm, or unlucky to "live out their days."
The pardoned turkeys living in Gobblers Rest, VA, are artificially protected. Naturally, they'd be bobcat or coyote food.
Humans are, by classification, animals, and before agrarian culture, we lived and died like the animals, naturally.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday October 02 2019, @06:35PM (2 children)
True, but in the context of TFA we're typically talking about so-called "livestock" raised by the farming industry where humans usually choose the time and means of the animal's demise and unlike other predators, we much more fully understand the implications of these choices.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday October 02 2019, @07:46PM
Seems like they would be better named the "walking dead stock..."
We "used" research animals sourced from an Oscar Meyer farm. Wax eloquent all you want about the rights of the poor little smart piglets, we took them out of the farm early, treated them well for one to 5 days, then gave them an injection that they (usually, and ideally) never woke up from. Still, the Friday piglet was usually pretty much of a basket case, having noticed his four friends leave one by one and never return.
Temple Grandin tried (and to a degree succeeded) to bring a little "humanity" into the beef processing industry, more or less by putting the thought process into the perspective of the animals and designing the process to be as comfortable for them as practically possible. You know, basic empathy, something that centuries of "cow pokes" apparently lacked in abundance.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday October 02 2019, @07:54PM
As for:
Other predators' behaviors have evolved to maximize their chances of procreation/survival, and this often includes a degree of restraint when hunting prey.
Humans have mostly devolved into the pursuit of the holy dollar, utilizing their high school math educations to find the maximal profit point for harvest. Time is money, meat is money, grow the most meat in the shortest time to maximize your profit, simple enough that even Bubba gets it. Lately some college kids have been breeding for optimal performance in the hog and chicken sheds, selecting and refining the breeds, pumping the antibiotics and the steroids until the meat (particularly chicken and pork, but also beef) you buy in the market today grows insanely large and fast as compared to the ancestor farm animals of 60-70 years ago.
I can't imagine a reality where change this rapid and radical can completely lack negative consequences.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday October 02 2019, @04:11PM
In
GodMoney We Trust.The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 02 2019, @05:02PM
Taking another's life you're fine with, paying taxes though is an affront to god.
You are one morally corrupt asshole.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 02 2019, @08:11AM (4 children)
Here's The Real Truth About That Confusing Red Meat Study [sciencealert.com]
Same old story. Coffee is good|bad for you. Eggs are good|bad for you. Red meat is good|bad for you.
If you are old enough to worry about this stuff, you are already DEAD MEAT.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday October 02 2019, @08:40AM (2 children)
The published findings quite often depend upon who funded the study. Who funded this one? McMaster, is that the university funded by McD*nalds FFS?*
*Apparently not.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 02 2019, @12:55PM
According to Mcdonalds university, eating fast food is great. According to big pharma, getting fascinated is great (and if you get hurt, the taxpayers will pay for it, not them). Who is more evil?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday October 02 2019, @01:28PM
BEEF, it's what's for dinner.
Brought to you by the Cattle Ranchers of America.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 02 2019, @11:18AM
Everything gives you cancer [youtube.com].
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 02 2019, @08:19AM (18 children)
Link to one of their studies: https://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/2752327/patterns-red-processed-meat-consumption-risk-cardiometabolic-cancer-outcomes-systematic [annals.org]
Right there, in Table 2: summary of findings. 10% reduction in Cancer in people that don't eat red meat. Of course they try to hand-wave away this but whatever.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Wednesday October 02 2019, @08:44AM
Yeah, well, I still have to deal with my other 90% of cancer, so what's the point? (grin)
Also, ew [xkcd.com].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Insightful) by qzm on Wednesday October 02 2019, @09:04AM (4 children)
It's not causation.
As much as people keep trying to spin it as..
I would be shocked if there was not a correlation there as vegetarians generally do tend to be more prevalent amongst younger people, also smokers tend not to be vegetarian.
Actually I'm surprised it was only 10%.. which could indicate the red meat was actually beneficial.. (half joking.. But it is possible)
Correlation by itself is almost meaningless.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 02 2019, @10:16AM (1 child)
Are you trolling for lulz? In the context of correlative studies, finding a correlation with power 10% of incidence means they cannot claim "is not associated with cancer likelihood."
OTOH consider: because they're correlation studies, NOTHING can be cause-effect proven, but... surely that doesn't mean that there are no cause-effect relations between diet and health.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 02 2019, @01:03PM
When they look at cenetarians and ask them how they lived so long they say it makes no sense because they smoked and drank and did whatever the fuck they wanted their whole lives.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday October 02 2019, @01:33PM (1 child)
Even though evolution is constantly at work and can show dramatic changes in a surprisingly small number of generations, humans have basically evolved as omnivores for millions of years. We're designed, by natural selection, to eat that same diet our ancestors ate thousands of generations before us. Humans that didn't do as well on that diet, didn't produce as many offspring. That can include cancer, heart disease, etc.
Now, we're all concerned with life after childbearing these days, which was a very real distinction for the XX chromosome carriers, not as much for the XYs... still, the diet that was good for the pre-humans, is generally good for us.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 02 2019, @03:23PM
And almost all cancers has very little to do with evolution. There is a reason why old people get cancer, not young people.
And please, if you talk about child cancers then you must already care even more about meat since this study shows it is clearly associated with even more cancers. So, no child cancers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Bot on Wednesday October 02 2019, @09:05AM (5 children)
The summary of findings is irrelevant to me, I'd rather concentrate on method.
People who avoid some food are necessarily people who care for what they eat, and probably adopt a series of other health related behavior. So, if this is not taken into account, a study which tells me a vegan guy who inputs less calories, practices sports yoga and outdoor activity has 10% less p if getting cancer than the overworked divorcee who wolfs down his mcsh!t burger before crying self to sleep, I would conclude that red meat improves your health.
I have a far better argument for LIMITING meat. A couple generations ago people ate less meat and we're generally healthier looking. So I would put meat among the risk factors.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 02 2019, @11:15AM (4 children)
I agree with most of your points but not the last one. Two or more generations back there was less fried foods, chips, processed foods, high fructose corn syrup, and pesticides used in agriculture. A far higher percentage of jobs involved manual labor. Meal preparations were slower before the microwave, so it was more convenient to grab an apple or make a sandwich than heat up canned pasta. And last but not least, many people eat poorly or eat too much when stressed, and mass media has been adding to stress. Maybe excess meat intake is a contributor to modern health problems with fatness, but there are too many changes to diet and lifestyle to be confident. I'm trying to cut meat intake for ethical and environmental reasons, but I'm not sure if it's healthier.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday October 02 2019, @12:11PM (3 children)
Taking 1 generation = 25 years, this means what? 1970?
Let's see:
TV dinner [wikipedia.org]
Microwave oven - residential use [wikipedia.org]
Me thinks that's all going down for healthy eating from there. Coke wasn't quite a new thing then [google.com]
---
Ah, yes, about those "less pesticides used in agriculture":
Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, commonly known as DDT [wikipedia.org]
Righto. Started in '45, accumulation for 30 years make '75. Seems like they banned it very close to peak soil accumulation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 02 2019, @01:15PM
Good points, thanks for the corrections.
Three minor counters:
First, I was born in the 1970s, I should have clarified that I meant two generations back from my own. My grandparents were all born in the 1920s.
Second, in 1972 minimum wage was higher, adjusting for inflation, than it is today at $1.60 but a $349 microwave represented over five weeks of gross income. A $750 million dollar microwave market at that price covers fewer than 2.5 million households. My own experience growing up was that microwaves weren't common in most households until the late 1980s or even early 1990s. We had TV dinners before that, but you had to put them in a conventional oven or convection oven. I'm not sure if having to wait an extra ten or fifteen minutes for a lot of your meals impacted calorie intake, I'm just pointing out that it's a difference to consider.
Third, Coke has been around since the late 19th century and has been wildly popular for many decades but they didn't switch to high fructose corn syrup HFCS until the late 20th century. There is some evidence - I don't know whether it's trustworthy - that HFCS increases the risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes more than sugar.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 02 2019, @01:24PM (1 child)
Damn, these last 50 years have been such a disappointment compared to the 50 years before, and the advancements they made.
And the 50 years before that gave us both GR and QED, so really, what have we been doing?!?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 02 2019, @02:14PM
NHST replaced science once the US government became the main source of funding after WWII. Future generations are going to have to restart from about 1950 because the sheer amount of garbage generated since is too great to dig out anything useful.
"We are quite in danger of sending highly trained and highly intelligent young men out into the world with tables of erroneous numbers under their arms, and with a dense fog in the place where their brains ought to be. In this century, of course, they will be working on guided missiles and advising the medical profession on the control of disease, and there is no limit to the extent to which they could impede every sort of national effort."
Fisher, R N (1958). "The Nature of Probability". Centennial Review. 2: 261–274.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by theluggage on Wednesday October 02 2019, @11:30AM (5 children)
Thanks for taking the time to convert the extra-deaths-per-1000 into relative % risk - you've nicely demonstrated how to spin these sorts of statistics to maximise scaremongering.
What table actually says for "Overall cancer incidence" is:
Lifetime population risk: 185 per 1000 population.
Risk difference: -12 per 1000 population (95% confidence interval between -18 and -4)
So, to make that clear, around 185 people out of 100 are expected to get cancer, but everybody cutting down on red/processed meat might reduce that to between 167 and 181.
Oh, dear, that doesn't sound very scary so lets take the top end of that result (18 - it could just as easily be 4) and express it as a percentage of the 185 people (out of 1000) expected to get cancer anyway - so 9.7%... might as well round that up to 10% (even though you've already cherry-picked the top end of the confidence interval - a fairer figure would be 6% +/- 4% ) - so 10% increased cancer risk !!!!! - headline sorted!
So - to put it another way, you have a ~18.5% base risk of getting cancer, cutting red/processed meat might reduce that to ~16.7%-18.1% assuming that the original studies weren't just due to test subjects lying about jogging 10 miles a day and not smoking.
Unfortunately, kidnapping 1000 identical twins, locking them in a room for 10 years while feeding them healthy fruit and veg with either real or placebo bacon is neither ethical nor practical, so all of these "inference" studies should be taken with a huge pinch of
salt... er... maybe lemon juice or a hint of garlic?(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 02 2019, @01:08PM
Is this one of those overunity probabilities they discovered in financial markets?
https://web.williams.edu/Mathematics/sjmiller/public_html/341Fa09/handouts/Burgin_ExtendedProbs.pdf [williams.edu]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday October 02 2019, @02:37PM
Yeah, that reincarnation-cloning technique is really cancer-prone...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 02 2019, @03:19PM (1 child)
So, quoting wrong numbers is your specialty?? It says, 185 and -18 (-26 to -11).
But whatever cherry picking you like so you can be outraged.
So sad that people don't understand statistics. Yeah, I guess you can eat all the fucking shit you want and we can defund cancer research. It's fucking useless anyway because "1% here and 1% there" ads up to .... 0% ??? So all these people that get cancer, well, fuck them.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Wednesday October 02 2019, @05:54PM
Sorry - I misread the table- the -18 to -4 was from the next line. Doesn't change the principle of how quoting %changes in number of victims exaggerates the perceived level of risk.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by theluggage on Wednesday October 02 2019, @06:04PM
Whups - Muphrey's law was strong in this one.
The correct confidence interval was -26 to -11 (-18 to -4 came from the next, similarly titled, row) so 18 was the central value and I apologise for suggesting that the GP cherry=picked the extreme end of the range.
The point about how presenting risk as a % change in the number of victims rather than as the number of extra cases in the general population stands, though.
Oh, yes, and there's a missing zero...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday October 02 2019, @11:06AM (4 children)
The response will be predictable.... how can I be holier than thou via asceticism, if I'm allowed to eat meat? How will I proudly signal my incredible level of virtue? Obviously its morally wrong for others to eat a delicious grilled steak based on these results if I am still trying to "cash in" proudly and very publicly with a nice plate of steamed cabbage.
(Score: 2) by Rupert Pupnick on Wednesday October 02 2019, @01:57PM
https://sputniknews.com/viral/201904101073995433-jack-dorsey-daily-routine/ [sputniknews.com]
The signals may be virtuous, but the face says, "Has anyone got an extra sandwich?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 02 2019, @02:53PM
Have you tried beating your chest?
(Score: 4, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday October 02 2019, @05:45PM (1 child)
You just did.
(Score: 2, Troll) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday October 03 2019, @02:46AM
This is VLM we're talking about. He has no virtue to signal; what he has is an in-group signal.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 02 2019, @02:49PM
Wake up sheeple! McMasters is a barbecue sauce!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 02 2019, @04:34PM
So. They took a bunch of studies that already involve statistics, and analyzed them with even more statistics.
This is the exact opposite of the direction in which we need to go.
We've all got stories of relatives who ate a lot of meat, drank, smoked and lived to be 90. We've got the stories of relatives who had heart attacks in their 40s, and most of us are somewhere in between.
The average is "all of us, yet none of us". Statistics just gives us averages at the highest level, and says nothing about the MECHANISM THAT DRIVES DISEASE.
I'd be more interested in studies along the lines of "people with gene X6B5 are 80% more likely to have heart disease if they eat more than 5 servings of read meat per week". That is still statistics, but it's closer to the mechanism, not further.