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Red meat and processed food 'not back on the menu' according to new review

nhs.uk

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Re: Red meat and processed food 'not back on the menu' according to new review

#51

Post by eeh »

droithomme wrote: post #46
eeh wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the article? The analysis and results treats then separately: "processed meat: you would increase your risk by 0.4% over 10 years, 1.02% over 20 years and 1.74% over 30 years red meat: 0.17% over 10 years, 0.41% over 20 years and 0.62% over 30 years" > The additives in the latter have been shown definitively to do harm, whereas there is less evidence about the former. The article is evidence of their rel…

I noticed the risk is higher for poultry than for red meat. So people eating poultry only can reduce their risk by switching from poultry to steak.

This articles refers only to CVD risk, not total morbidity which is influenced by multiple risk factors.

Re: Red meat and processed food 'not back on the menu' according to new review

#52

Post by eeh »

jmkd wrote: post #8

This is great. A calm, accessible analysis of a complex, emotive and apparently volatile topic. Well done NHS. Of interest here's a Freedom of Information request about the consultants Bazian who produced this for the NHS: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/bazian_services_to_th...

I used to read this blog, until I realised every article was:

"This study is limited and warrants further research. This alone does not warrant a change to dietary advice. We encourage people eat per the Eat Well plate, as we've done for 15+ years."

At which point I stopped reading newspaper articles on diet, nor their critiques, and spent that time on following their advice.

Re: Red meat and processed food 'not back on the menu' according to new review

#53

Post by eeh »

GordonS wrote: post #25
simonh wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sorry, but that’s simply an unwarranted assumption.

Eh? The figures given are clear (and yes, I've read the article by now) - the risk associated with processed meat is much greater than that with red meat.

I believe the following assumption was the one simonh disagreed could be made: "I certainly assumed they were claiming the same/similar risk for both red and processed meat"

I agree. Headlines should be suggestive of content, but cannot contain all the nuances.

Re: Red meat and processed food 'not back on the menu' according to new review

#54

Post by jmkd »

eeh wrote: post #52
jmkd wrote: post #8

This is great. A calm, accessible analysis of a complex, emotive and apparently volatile topic. Well done NHS. Of interest here's a Freedom of Information request about the consultants Bazian who produced this for the NHS: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/bazian_services_to_th...

I used to read this blog, until I realised every article was: "This study is limited and warrants further research. This alone does not warrant a change to dietary advice. We encourage people eat per the Eat Well plate, as we've done for 15+ years." At which point I stopped reading newspaper articles on diet, nor their critiques, and spent that time on following their advice.

No sensible health authority would change dietary advice based on a single study. Consider research like this as discrete steps in one direction or another, with a much longer continuous waveform representing national and population-led understanding.

Re: Red meat and processed food 'not back on the menu' according to new review

#55

Post by stefd »

superpermutat0r wrote: post #42
redka wrote: post #37

Could someone explain to me how could researchers come to these conclusions if there are different factors at play that surely impact the results? The article states that: > Participants consumed a weekly average of 1.5 servings of processed meat, 3 for unprocessed, 2 for poultry and 1.6 servings of fish. People with higher intake were generally more likely to be smokers, drink more alcohol, have a higher body mass i…

They use statistical methods to eliminate the confounding variables. But given that they do not understand the fallibility of doing that on extremely noisy data, the conclusions are telling us nothing. They cannot control anything and it's all just questionnaires. It's fine too look at these things but they seem to get blown out of proportion every single time, even when industry funded studies come out saying eggs o…

> They use statistical methods to eliminate the confounding variables.

Some of those anyway. You can only account for confounders that you know about a priori.

And given they used Food Frequency Questionnaires, it's mostly wasted efforts imho.

Re: Red meat and processed food 'not back on the menu' according to new review

#56

Post by stefd »

zamfi wrote: post #23
orange_soda wrote: post #11

>red meat: 0.17% over 10 years, 0.41% over 20 years and 0.62% over 30 years Isn't this essentially nothing? Am I misinterpreting these results?

> Isn't this essentially nothing? Essentially nothing: for an individual? Yes. For a population? No. You or I may not care about a 0.62% increased CVD rate for ourselves over 30 years, but that does translate to 6,200 extra possibly-preventable cases of CVD per million people. That's about 76,000 diagnoses annually in the US alone.

This is assuming this 0.62% actually shows a TRUE effect.

If it is noise/invalid/a mistake, it means nothing; the actual effect might actually be a DECREASE of CVD as far as we know.

And it is important to also look at all cause mortality; such studies have often shown a decrease in CVD but the same final number of deaths...

Re: Red meat and processed food 'not back on the menu' according to new review

#57

Post by simonh »

GordonS wrote: post #25
simonh wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sorry, but that’s simply an unwarranted assumption.

Eh? The figures given are clear (and yes, I've read the article by now) - the risk associated with processed meat is much greater than that with red meat.

The assumption I’m referring to is just the thing you said, in your post, that you assumed.

Re: Red meat and processed food 'not back on the menu' according to new review

#58

Post by GordonS »

simonh wrote: post #57
GordonS wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh? The figures given are clear (and yes, I've read the article by now) - the risk associated with processed meat is much greater than that with red meat.

The assumption I’m referring to is just the thing you said, in your post, that you assumed.

Ah, sorry, I see what you mean now. It was the part where you said "unwarranted" that confused me, as the thing I said was warranted by the headline, the very thing I said was the basis for the assumption.

Re: Red meat and processed food 'not back on the menu' according to new review

#59

Post by zamfi »

datashow wrote: post #30
zamfi wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't this essentially nothing? Essentially nothing: for an individual? Yes. For a population? No. You or I may not care about a 0.62% increased CVD rate for ourselves over 30 years, but that does translate to 6,200 extra possibly-preventable cases of CVD per million people. That's about 76,000 diagnoses annually in the US alone.

This way of interpreting the data is misleading. For population, it still could mean nothing. People are not living in an isolated environment just eating red meat or processed food and do nothing else. At the population level there are way more factors need to be considered. You can't even imagine how many things in the society will be impacted if people stop eating red meat or the processed food. CVD will be the le…

It could mean nothing, or it could not. But a small effect size alone doesn’t tell you this, and you are correct that there are many factors — that is exactly the point of this study, to tease apart which other factors are causative.

Of course, this study says nothing about what happens if you try to change behavior, that seems like an entirely unrelated point.

Taken together, I’m not sure how you can be so confident that a small effect size therefore means nothing.

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