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Meat consumption and risk of 25 conditions: outcome-wide analyses of 475K people

bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com

211–220 of 281 posts

Re: Meat consumption and risk of 25 conditions: outcome-wide analyses of 475K people

#211
post #63

I'm just gonna say it: epidemiological studies suck and we need something better. Humans and their lives are just too multi-variate, even with nearly ~500k people in a study. All you end up with are correlations – I've basically never seen a study like this that manages to demonstrate causality convincingly.

To infer causality you need interventions. Although there are some methods to infer causal relationships from observational data (e.g. see Pearl or Spirtes' work, which is ignored by most epidemiologists). I think the biggest problem is that they are not measuring low level molecular variables like metabolites, or abundances of gut bacteria. Hence, it's pretty hard to infer a causal chain. And since controlling for c…

> controlling for covariates is so hard

Especially when the purported effects are small/clinically insignificant.

Re: Meat consumption and risk of 25 conditions: outcome-wide analyses of 475K people

#212
post #72
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Food surveys and food diaries are hilariously bad[1]. I'm surprised any studies based on them are still getting published. There was literally a reality TV show in England based around how terribly inaccurate food diaries are. It's on YouTube[2]. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4527547/figure/... [2] https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=secret+eaters

Studies like this are published for political reasons, not scientific reasons. I wouldn't be surprised if the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is behind this study.

Even if that were true, what kind of issue would that be if Bill Gates wanted people to get fewer easily preventable illnesses?

Re: Meat consumption and risk of 25 conditions: outcome-wide analyses of 475K people

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conspiracy theorists have a real thing about Bill Gates.

You can't deny that Bill has completely lost it trying to become public batman by force and shove whatever the fuck he wants into our throats by using his money "for our good".

Not even close. Most of the foundation's work is in third world countries, and doesn't even touch half the stuff that conspiracy theorists are insistent he's got ultimate control over

Re: Meat consumption and risk of 25 conditions: outcome-wide analyses of 475K people

#214
post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The study’s funding is included in the study: Funding This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust, Our Planet Our Health (Livestock, Environment and People - LEAP) [grant number 205212/Z/16/Z]; Cancer Research UK [grant numbers C8211/A19170 and C8211/A29017]; and the UK Medical Research Council [grant number MR/M012190/1]. AP-C is supported by a Cancer Research UK Population Research Fellowship [grant number C60192…

Actually, looks like the Gateses have in the past funded the Wellcome Trust. https://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/Quick-Links/Gran...

So the Gates want to prevent Malaria and Pneumonia. What's the issue?

Re: Meat consumption and risk of 25 conditions: outcome-wide analyses of 475K people

#215
post #85

I don't know what it is about diet research but it seems to really bring out strong opinions on hackernews. Given that we're the target market for Soylent I guess it makes sense.

Any thread about nutrition devolves to an absolute shit show.

Re: Meat consumption and risk of 25 conditions: outcome-wide analyses of 475K people

#216
post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sugar does not contain cholesterol, but consuming an inappropriate amount of it will most certainly have a negative impact on your blood lipid profile.

Do you have a reference by chance? Would love to dig in a bit. I know that high sugar consumption raises triglycerides. But haven't seen anything yet on cholesterol.

One missing piece of this puzzle is that your body is perfectly able to make its own cholesterol even if you never eat any.

Re: Meat consumption and risk of 25 conditions: outcome-wide analyses of 475K people

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't deny that Bill has completely lost it trying to become public batman by force and shove whatever the fuck he wants into our throats by using his money "for our good".

Not even close. Most of the foundation's work is in third world countries, and doesn't even touch half the stuff that conspiracy theorists are insistent he's got ultimate control over

... he does both ? At least Batman only stayed in 1 city.

Re: Meat consumption and risk of 25 conditions: outcome-wide analyses of 475K people

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meatless is the new “low fat” boogieman. Coincidentally, industrial food producers have discovered that it is cheaper and more profitable to sell ground up peas and plant oil as “meat”, water rinsed through oats as milk, etc. All of the “problems” with meat are market issues. Animal welfare issues are due to industrial farming practices, which will get worse if the industry declines. Land use and environmental issues…

So if factory farms reduce or disappear - animal welfare will get worse? I don't quite follow.

You're thinking of this as some sort of ethical issue. It's just business.

What happens to businesses with fixed or declining demand? Consolidation.

The bigger players start scooping up the weaker ones. Bigger players have more regulatory muscle. There are a thousand examples... aircraft is probably a decent one. You used to have Lockheed, Boeing, McDonnell, Douglas, etc... Now you have Boeing as "Team USA", who has the political and market power to do things like ship airliners that crash for avoidable reasons.

Re: Meat consumption and risk of 25 conditions: outcome-wide analyses of 475K people

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the info. It is apparent to me from living life that meat is a big part of a healthy diet. But it can be frustrating seeing studies such as this one come out and not knowing what to believe. I recently started dating a vegetarian and am really realizing how much harder it is to eat a healthy vegetarian diet. Since no one actually wants to eat nothing but greens / veggies all day, many of her meals are carb…

Just look to biology for the answers, its there if you pay attention. The leader of a wolf pack gets first pickins at a kill, and it always eats the liver first. Large carnivores elsewhere eat organs first as well. There's a growing body of research for something that's being called the "carnivore" diet, and there's a sub-movement called "eating nose-to-tail" that seems to be, as best as I can tell, led by a physicia…

If you would like organ meats but don't like the texture there are meat pills that contain an equal portion of each organ type that are desiccated. These [1] are the ones I use.

[1] - https://shop.ancestralsupplements.com/collections/frontpage/...

Re: Meat consumption and risk of 25 conditions: outcome-wide analyses of 475K people

#220
post #215
post #85

I don't know what it is about diet research but it seems to really bring out strong opinions on hackernews. Given that we're the target market for Soylent I guess it makes sense.

Any thread about nutrition devolves to an absolute shit show.

Most nutrition research is bad. Everybody gets a chance to espouse their favorite theories in the comments. How could it be otherwise? Doing good research in this space is expensive.
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