New study slams "years of shoddy research" about Red Meat...finds it is not "bad for you" nor is it a health risk

[BackInTheGame78]

Uh oh...another new study bashing the terrible studies that conclusions have been based on for years and years without much questioning..


“We found weak evidence of association between unprocessed red meat consumption and colorectal cancer, breast cancer, type 2 diabetes and ischemic heart disease. Moreover, we found no evidence of an association between unprocessed red meat and ischemic stroke or hemorrhagic stroke,” they summarized.

“The evidence for a direct vascular or heath risk from eating meat regularly is very low, to the point that there is probably no risk,” commented Dr. Steven Novella, a Yale neurologist and president of the New England Skeptical Society. “There is, however, more evidence for a health risk from eating too few vegetables. That is really the risk of a high-meat diet, those meat calories are displacing vegetable calories.”

Red meat is not a health risk. New study slams years of shoddy research

Red meat has been linked to all sorts of adverse health outcomes. But a new study shows that the associations are weak or nonexistent.

bigthink.com

 

[Millard Fillmore]

I've learned over the years to tune out news about health/food studies.

It's not that they aren't useful cumulatively or if someone wants to do real research. Just that the media glom on to these stories, report them in simplest attention grabbing terms, and the masses turn the headline into conventional wisdom which later turns out to be b.s.

Remember when eggs were bad for you? Or red wine prevented cancer? Etc.

Better for me just to use common sense and stop demonizing or halo-izing foods.

 

[EyeBRollin]

This is not accurate. Unprocessed red meat is indeed a health risk that is dose dependent. The critical mass appears to be 100g per day. If you eat less than 100g per day on average, there is no negative association. Above that mark, there is association with unprocessed red meat as an independent risk factor for CVD and cancer.

In short, eating unprocessed red meat once or twice a week is perfectly fine. Beyond that, it is a net negative

 

[BackInTheGame78]

This is not accurate. Unprocessed red meat is indeed a health risk that is dose dependent. The critical mass appears to be 100g per day. If you eat less than 100g per day on average, there is no negative association. Above that mark, there is association with unprocessed red meat as an independent risk factor for CVD and cancer.

In short, eating unprocessed red meat once or twice a week is perfectly fine. Beyond that, it is a net negative

This has no basis according to what they found. Again. You seem unwilling to accept that information and how we view things change over time.

 

[EyeBRollin]

This has no basis according to what they found. Again. You seem unwilling to accept that information and how we view things change over time.

You right. Eat all the red meat you want. No problem at all.

 

[BackInTheGame78]

You right. Eat all the red meat you want. No problem at all.

That isn't what they are saying.

 

[EyeBRollin]

That isn't what they are saying.

What they are saying is wrong. Red meat intake is independently associated with cancer and heart disease. As I said, it is dose dependent. The evidence on this is not even controversial. The occasional steak or burger is fine. If you want to eat it every day.. good luck.

 

[Serenity]

I think one problem with cancer studies and reporting on it to the general public is the use of percentages. Most people are too stupid or lazy to understand what a 15% increase in cancer risk means.

In 2020 the global average for getting colorectal cancer was 19.5/100 000 or 0.0195%. Now this includes all causes, but let's pretend for the sake of argument it doesn't include eating red meat and doing so increases that statistic by 15%. Now it's 22,4/100 000 or 0.0224% or 2.9 more people per 100k who gets cancer because of eating red meat.

My point is that "15% higher risk" sounds like a lot more than an increase of 0.0029 percentage points.

The percentages presented in media doesn't give a useful sense of the true risk such as "if you eat a lot of red meat the chance you're getting this cancer this year is now 0.0224% instead of 0.0195%". Nobody would quit eating red meat over cancer concerns alone if this was the numbers presented to them.

Journalists generally suck at interpreting and putting studies into the right perspective, they don't understand much more of what they're reading than the average Joe.

 

[Serenity]

Also, journalists / reporters are not into the whole 'red meat or not' camp, they merely looking for content that will make people buy/read magazines/newspapers in order to sell ad space. When there is no 'real' news, they come up with this shyte to just 'fill the empty space'.

Most of them, yeah, but some probably are just biased as well. It's easy to abuse statistics to push an agenda by interpreting the numbers in incorrect ways, I'm sure that's done deliberately rather than through sheer ignorance at least in some articles.

 

[Reincarnated]

Look, this article or any other article isn't going to sway me to eat or not to eat more/less red meat (I eat a good amount of it), but nutrition & food related studies are notorious for "straw man" conclusions. You can literally find at least 2-3 articles that support almost any food related claim, such as "a glass of wine a day is good for you" or "why eating chocolate is good for your health". Proceed with caution I'd all I'm saying.

 

[obelisk]

I'm pure carnivore (primarily beef). Believe the straw man arguments and flawed science of these studies if you like. Best I've felt in years.

BigFarm, BigFood and BigPharma...the three Fs are NOT your friend.

 

[EyeBRollin]

I'm pure carnivore (primarily beef). Believe the straw man arguments and flawed science of these studies if you like. Best I've felt in years.

That “flawed science” is medical consensus from decades of epidemiological research. “Feeling great” on carnivore has more to do with removal of certain foods than beef being some superfood.

 

[Bible_Belt]

This study claims red meat causes diabetes, which is a new one, I think.

New research warns one dietary choice may be linked to diabetes: ‘A limit of about one serving per week … would be reasonable’

This study, which analyzed health data from over 216,000 participants for an extended period of years, strengthens the certainty of the association.

www.yahoo.com

 

[EyeBRollin]

This study claims red meat causes diabetes, which is a new one, I think.

New research warns one dietary choice may be linked to diabetes: ‘A limit of about one serving per week … would be reasonable’

This study, which analyzed health data from over 216,000 participants for an extended period of years, strengthens the certainty of the association.

www.yahoo.com

I have seen a few articles linking a correlation between red meat and diabetes but nothing about it being causal so far. Cancer and heart disease are the big concerns with high red meat consumption.

 

[Bible_Belt]

I have seen a few articles linking a correlation between red meat and diabetes but nothing about it being causal so far. Cancer and heart disease are the big concerns with high red meat consumption.

They'll never say anything causes anything else. I was just surprised by this one. I had associated diabetes with sugar and processed carbs making glucose levels spike up and down. But meat doesn't do that.

 

[Scaramouche]

Hi BackInTheGame,
Terrific article.....But at the risk of being a tedious Old Guy,Marinate your meat guys and chuck the marinade,tastiest part though it may be,down the sink,never burn or smoke your meat...Having worked on a Chicken Farm and seen conditions in which Hogs live,I eat those meats sparingly...My choice is Wild Kill or Lambs that never see a feed lot nor are they injected....I favour the food of our primitive ancestors,they spent their long cold nights under the wondrous beauty of the Stars,sitting around the fire trading lies and cracking the bones for marrow...They took on board a lot of Gelatin,natures salve and lubricant for worn bones and Cartelidge,maybe also got incidental cinders and Silicon.

 

[Bible_Belt]

My cousin raises pigs, but they are free range and not raised in confinement like almost all pork sold in the US. I can literally see the happiness in his pigs just driving by. They are cultivators and he moves them from one patch of ground to another. At least in the US, if you visit your local farmers market, you can probably find free range pork. Like any other animal, it tastes better when allowed to have its natural diet.

 

[Machine10033]

i eat a ton of red meat. Probably 7 plus servings a week... i workout a good deal... and also ensure I take fish oil twice daily. My blood work is always perfect and when I would take part in our biometric screening for work that nurses were always amazed at my markers. It could be genetic but who knows? I eat what I enjoy and what makes me feel good.

 

[Scaramouche]

Hi Amsterdam,
" Only eat meat you killed yourself with your bare hands."Is that Cat Wrangler or Strangler on your footnote?

 

[Scaramouche]

Hi Machine10033,
The take home message I got was that the good effect eating your Veggies outweighed any problems from Red Meat....I read once that Canadas Inuit,in their home environment were almost entirely carniverous but had very little Cancer or Chloresterol problems...You speak of genetics,possibly you are a West Atlantic type,say Irish or Scots?whose ancestors foraged along the Sea Shore,although in the hard Winters they ate enormous quantities of Sea Kale to fill their bellies.