New research questions the evidence for health benefits of eating less red meat • Hacker News Board

Re: New research questions the evidence for health benefits of eating less red meat

#81

Post by pazimzadeh » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 10:01 PM UTC

tathougies wrote: post #51

pazimzadeh wrote: post #27

It's complicated. Telling people who have been abstaining from eating red meat that it's ok to eat it might also be a bad idea. Humans lost the enzyme that converts Neu5Ac to Neu5Gc. Other animals have Neu5Gc, which can be incorporated into your own tissues and potentially be recognized as foreign. So if you haven't been exposed to animal products and you suddenly are, that could trigger auto-immunity. Oh and of cour…

As an anecdote, my wife gave up vegetarianism after ten years and suffered no consequences coming back onto meat. She started with a tiny bit of pork and the next day was eating chicken, pork, etc. The fact is humans are omnivores.

That makes sense - by starting with small amounts you're more likely to induce oral tolerance. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4603531/

Re: New research questions the evidence for health benefits of eating less red meat

#82

Post by Retric » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 10:05 PM UTC

njarboe wrote: post #72

Retric wrote: post #6

What an odd headline/article. Clearly, common food types are not going to be extremely harmful, so the magnitude of impact from dietary advice is never going to be extreme. Red Meat is still showing up as harmful in these studies, which is why it’s advice and not say a ban etc. At best this reads like spin from the cattle industry. Unless I am missing something?

About half was through the article: "Dr. Allison has received research funding from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, a lobbying group for meat producers."

Yea, that’s why I said cattle industry spin, but I don’t want to reject the idea based on the messenger.

I suspect a basic risk assessment in the context of other food advice would a good place to start. However, it also says the data is not that great to make such assertions.

Re: New research questions the evidence for health benefits of eating less red meat

#83

Post by jschwartzi » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 10:05 PM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #64

jschwartzi wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best thing for the environment is not cutting down forests to replace them with grasslands. I just got back from Maui where this was standard practice for hundreds of years, and in fact one of the neighboring islands(Kaho'olawe) no longer catches rain because the ruminant grass-fed beef cattle that were ranched on that island ate all of the vegetation year after year resulting in massive erosion of the topsoil. W…

That's in environments where forests exist. I would agree with you there. In the U.S. the Great Plains were not forests in any recent millenia. I'm comparing corn and soy fields to grasslands.

Consider though that most "grass-fed" beef is grown in places like Brazil or Argentina where the native forest is cut down to make space for it. Or as an alternative consider how many cows are grown in feedlots and would instead need grassland to roam on and you can see how everyone indulging in red meat at their current level but with grass-fed beef could result in another environmental disaster.

A better way to think about this is to consider how many acres of land and how much fuel input is required to grow 2000 calories of food with an appropriate mix of macronutrients. I don't have a complete picture of what this would look like for a traditional American diet with the huge amount of meat we consume here, so I can't make an argument from that.

I do know that if we focus on acres of land and fuel inputs needed to grow protein from various sources, that plant-based proteins are much more space and fuel efficient than taking those same proteins and growing cows or chickens from them. Arguments for not eating soybeans, for example, center around how much land is being cleared to grow soybeans. But those same arguments ignore how much of those soybeans are being fed to cattle.

The best solutions in my mind are to significantly reduce our intake from meat sources regardless of how those sources were raised. Eating meat at the level we are used to is not a tenable situation.

Re: New research questions the evidence for health benefits of eating less red meat

#84

Post by machinelearning » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 10:06 PM UTC

pazimzadeh wrote: post #78

machinelearning wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has DMT been shown to be vital for the healthy functioning of the human body? And does it necessarily have to be consumed to have ample levels in the body? I won't comment on your loaded phrasing of "the same way we consume sugar", but I think its obvious you're trying really hard to strawman my argument.

I think you are either unwilling or unable to read the scientific literature (which I've conveniently linked for you). None of what you are saying is correct. You do not need to consume refined sugar to have "ample levels" in your body. Is consuming refined sugar vital for the healthy functioning of the human body? FYI, it's not 100% clear whether humans produce DMT but it's highly likely https://www.nature.com/artic…

A wikipedia article is your notion of scientific literature? lol

Anyways, I did read it and if you don't realize by now, my questions are rhetorical since you don't seem to have a strong logical foundation.

>> Is consuming refined sugar vital for the healthy functioning of the human body?

This is what I'm referring to as strawmanning my argument. Surely this is true of sugar in general and while I was referring to refined sugar as a potential vehicle for getting sugar into the body you decided to act as though I'm proposing getting 100% of your sugar intake from refined sugar.

Your link strengthens what I just said. If DMT is produced endogenously surely its different from sugar that has to be consumed.

Re: New research questions the evidence for health benefits of eating less red meat

#85

Post by inetknght » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 10:08 PM UTC

sleavey wrote: post #79

inetknght wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I understand, Rancid just means it doesn't taste as good as it should but generally doesn't otherwise result in less-healthy or less-nutritious food. Am I incorrect?

I'm not an expert, but I think rancid oil is oxidised oil and thus acts like any oxidised chemical: it tries to steal an electron from somewhere else, including inside our bodies - "free radicals" - which can damage things like our DNA. There's also some link to how it can change the behaviour of proton gradients in our cells (I read about it a while ago in "The Vital Question" by Nick Lane) but I'm sketchy on the ex…

But that oxidation would occur anyway whether it's on a shelf over time or inside of our body... wouldn't it?

Re: New research questions the evidence for health benefits of eating less red meat

#86

Post by zacherates » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 10:13 PM UTC

narrator wrote: post #15

Diet science is the most pathetically politicized "science" next to economics. On one side you've got the industry groups promoting their food and giving out grants to scientists to get the right results. On another side you've got the rich radical environmental and animal rights activists wanting everyone to go Vegan and giving out grants to scientists to get their results. It's just a clusterf k of politics going b…

While funding and conflicts of interest are an issue, a much bigger problem with nutrition research is that it is extremely difficult/expensive/unethical to study the outcomes people actually care about (living longer, losing weight, preventing disease), because that would require being able to control a large number of people's diet for decades (which in turn would require either paying/motivating them enough to comply, or doing so against their will).

... so instead, you end with a bunch of observational studies (which cannot show causation), or studies of placeholders assuming it maps to something people actually care about (eg. "cholesterol levels in the blood stream after X hours" for "Y years of life lost to heart disease per hundred thousand"), or bench studies (some chemical component in broccoli can kill cancer cells in a petri dish becomes "broccoli fights cancer" ignoring the fact that eg. fire kills cancer cells in a petri dish... that doesn't mean you should eat it).

... which are subject to all the usual difficulties for associated with subjects that are hard to study: small samples, inadequate surveys, bad statistics, HARKing, p-hacking.

... the resulting papers are then reported on uncritically, often generalizing the claims well beyond what the underlying science would support... because people read articles about things they actually do (eat meat) and outcomes they care about (live longer/avoid heart disease)... not about bench results.

Re: New research questions the evidence for health benefits of eating less red meat

#87

Post by pazimzadeh » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 10:13 PM UTC

machinelearning wrote: post #80

pazimzadeh wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did I contradict myself - I pointed out to you that cocaine is a naturally occurring compound, which it is. "Cocaine is not a naturally occurring compound but one generated through a synthetic process specifically to inhibit re-uptake of certain neurotransmitters" No, cocaine is extracted from coca leaves, it is not synthesized. Refined sugar is also extracted from plants - same thing.

You are commenting on an older version of what I commented. I had already corrected that before your comment. I do know that cocaine alkaloids are extracted from plants. Sugar is not necessarily extracted from plants. Its not the same thing. You can simply eat 1-2 servings of most fruit to get the same amount of sugar as a can of soda. It doesn't have to be potent to be found in nature. Still, I don't see where your…

I'm not sure what comment you're referring to, but you said "Refined sugar is nothing but sucrose, a natural compound found in plants and fruits" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21119863

You're the one who mentioned refined sugar. Nowhere have I said that any amount of sugar is bad. On the other hand, the parts of fruit that are beneficial are not the fructose (which is even worse for you than sucrose, which I assume is what you're talking about) but the vitamins, flavonoids and other compounds.

We can agree that sugar is not de facto bad. Where we apparently disagree is that refined sugar is not bad. I still eat it - doesn't make it good.

I would argue that coca leaves are not de facto bad, but refined cocaine is much closer to bad (though I hear it's really the impurities in street stuff that are bad.)

Re: New research questions the evidence for health benefits of eating less red meat

#88

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 10:14 PM UTC

tathougies wrote: post #51

pazimzadeh wrote: post #27

It's complicated. Telling people who have been abstaining from eating red meat that it's ok to eat it might also be a bad idea. Humans lost the enzyme that converts Neu5Ac to Neu5Gc. Other animals have Neu5Gc, which can be incorporated into your own tissues and potentially be recognized as foreign. So if you haven't been exposed to animal products and you suddenly are, that could trigger auto-immunity. Oh and of cour…

As an anecdote, my wife gave up vegetarianism after ten years and suffered no consequences coming back onto meat. She started with a tiny bit of pork and the next day was eating chicken, pork, etc. The fact is humans are omnivores.

[deleted]

Re: New research questions the evidence for health benefits of eating less red meat

#89

Post by sleavey » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 10:14 PM UTC

inetknght wrote: post #85

sleavey wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not an expert, but I think rancid oil is oxidised oil and thus acts like any oxidised chemical: it tries to steal an electron from somewhere else, including inside our bodies - "free radicals" - which can damage things like our DNA. There's also some link to how it can change the behaviour of proton gradients in our cells (I read about it a while ago in "The Vital Question" by Nick Lane) but I'm sketchy on the ex…

But that oxidation would occur anyway whether it's on a shelf over time or inside of our body... wouldn't it?

The high temperatures used to fry foods accelerates oxidation. Repeatedly using the same oil to fry foods at high temperatures (such as in factories and restaurants) leads to greater oxidation. Long shelf life food often has oil or was fried in oil that was heated to high temperatures. However, just leaving oil long enough exposed to air will also lead to oxidation, just at a slower rate (though I think highly refined oils, like those used not for cooking, have a slower or negligible oxidation rate "in air" but are usually not edible).

Re: New research questions the evidence for health benefits of eating less red meat

#90

Post by cageface » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 10:16 PM UTC

Dr. Allison has received research funding from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, a lobbying group for meat producers.

This is just meat industry damage control. The Harvard rebuttal lays out the issues pretty well. Just like big tobacco and big oil, they just need to sow enough confusion around the facts to make people give up and stop paying attention.