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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: 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/@ProfSteveKeen 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/@ProfSteveKeen 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...