[STUDY] Eating red meat raises 'substantially' risk of cancer or heart disease death

[hardheart]

Journalists reposting on scientific findings are notorious for overplaying, over-sensationalizing and misinterpreting study results. Having said that, completely dismissing large sample-sized correlational studies is plain dumb.

I'll take that this last sentence is a shot at my comment, and while not offended, I find your characterization of my generalization patently obtuse.

Large studies, such as that mentioned by TS, are often times poorly controlled and the data being collected is insufficient as to create real populations. There are so many more environmental factors that play in to mortality that this study can at best show a correlation though that is even likely to be outside of acceptable parameters.

Let's take distress as an example here. How was the distress measured for this population? Was it measured at all? Distress has been shown to have a direct negative impact on many factors that are known to increase mortality. That alone for me, throws enough of a wrench in their study to pretty much disregard it.

What they are saying is that people who eat red meat die faster than people that do not eat red meat and they're basing that off of a 3 decades long study, over several thousand people, with the only common environment factor being red meat consumption? Really?

 

[dropshot001]

i think the phds at Harvard have a pretty good grasp of causation

thanks though

if you believe this, then don't eat red meat. studies can be tweaked to show a lot of things, especially in relation to who is paying for it.

 

[rms13]

They collected data from meal logs that participants kept. To me that is not very scientific. How many people probably went all week without logging and then went back and tried to remember what they ate and how much and filled it in. How many people specified if they at grass fed, organic, etc. How many people specified if they trimmed the fat off meat. etc, etc, etc.

Believe me if I wanted to do my own study and come up with the opposite results I could. Most of these scientific studies are done by scientists looking for money to fund their research so they have motivation to come up with a certain result form their study.

 

[Revok]

MDA has a good deconstruction of this malarkey...

Will Eating Red Meat Kill You? | Mark's Daily Apple

 

[mtruitt76]

If this were true, you would be the first in line to call Bullshit on this study.

Sky divers might have shorter lifespans than the average person, for example. By not because of sky diving. The sky diving is simply one indicator of a person that is more likely to engage in higher risk behaviors and occupations. And it is the higher risk aggregate that increases mortality.

Excellent point. Higher red meat consumption may just be an indicator for people who are less active, less health conscious, and have a less balanced diet and imo this is the most likely case.

Journalists reposting on scientific findings are notorious for overplaying, over-sensationalizing and misinterpreting study results. Having said that, completely dismissing large sample-sized correlational studies is plain dumb.

What that study says is that, in their fairly large data set, while controlling for so and so confounders, eating more red meat, both processed and unprocessed, is correlated to a significantly higher mortality rate. It should be noted that grouping together processed and unprocessed red meat was a major point of criticism for similar older studies, and the design of this study was such that it would separate the two.

That's it. How you are going to interpret the findings is a different thing. This study obviously doesn't prove causation, but it is certainly better to be aware of this correlation than be unaware of it. The authors also comment on possible mechanisms via which daily red meat consumption might increase mortality risk (things like heme iron, sodium, nitrites, and certain carcinogens that are formed during cooking).

Everyone should be doing their own assessment of the existing data and reaching their own conclusions as to which dietary choices they are going to make.

Another excellent point. The study obviously cannot prove that red meat consumption leads to an increase in mortality, but designing a study to prove a causative link over a long time span would be close to impossible. The most reasonable response to the study would be to have a balance diet where you get your protein from a variety of sources and not red meat exclusively.

 

[Seriously-Dead]

but designing a study to prove a causative link over a long time span would be close to impossible. The most reasonable response to the study would be to have a balance diet where you get your protein from a variety of sources and not red meat exclusively.

No, it wouldn't be impossible. If they had any real science backing up their data set, which they don't, they could certainly show a causal link. But alas, despite their best research efforts they can't find physiological mechanisms to support their statistical data sets.

The smart response to this study is to not respond to it. Just keep it in mind.

 

[Sinister]

They collected data from meal logs that participants kept. To me that is not very scientific. How many people probably went all week without logging and then went back and tried to remember what they ate and how much and filled it in. How many people specified if they at grass fed, organic, etc. How many people specified if they trimmed the fat off meat. etc, etc, etc.

Believe me if I wanted to do my own study and come up with the opposite results I could. Most of these scientific studies are done by scientists looking for money to fund their research so they have motivation to come up with a certain result form their study.

By all means, do some science and show them how it's done!