Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Latest Study on Red Meat and Heart Disease: A Red Herring

unsettledscience.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 152 posts

Re: The Latest Study on Red Meat and Heart Disease: A Red Herring

#61

Post by Gatsky »

traviswt wrote: post #46
Gatsky wrote: post #20

Unfortunately meat is clearly bad for you in at least one but probably many ways. The most compelling evidence to me is that carnivorous animals have higher rates of death from cancer, see fig 2 of this fascinating study: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04224-5

Does that study only look at zoo animals? I would assume carnivorous animals get far more exercise when they have to hunt, chase, and kill their food than when it’s given to them. That confounding factor alone might be large. I’ve been wondering about the relation between nutritional excess and cancer, can’t recall ever seeing this studied.

Yes, they are animals in human care. But the fact is there is a difference between carnivores and herbivores across various species and animal lifestyles, which is strong proof that meat is carcinogenic. What factors mitigate this in the wild are largely irrelevant. You can smoke and exercise and be a bit better off, but that doesn't change the carcinogenic potential of cigarettes.

Re: The Latest Study on Red Meat and Heart Disease: A Red Herring

#63

Post by idlehand »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #54
Ensorceled wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's like the nuclear fans or anti-recycling groups that keep talking about how bad coal is. I'm confused, are you implying nuclear is bad and coal is good?

It's a False Dichotomy: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma If you can't argue well for your point, you talk about how bad something else is, with the implication that those are the only two options. Coal is bad, worse than nuclear. But those are not the only two options. And when comparing something that uses energy, like recycling, it's not a fair assumption for electric powered things to assume they are…

At least in Germany, they shut down the nuclear plants before the coal plants. When you shut down or decline to maintain, upgrade and expand nuclear, in favor of renewables which do not yet exist, fossil energy (coal, oil, or natural gas) tends to fill the gap.

Just look at Germany. Imagine how much better things would have been today if they'd shut down their fossil power plants before the nuclear plants.

Re: The Latest Study on Red Meat and Heart Disease: A Red Herring

#64

Post by mark_l_watson »

Even though I try to make almost all of my meals vegan, I eat two small portions (3 ounces) of non-feed lot organically raised beef a month. I have no scientific basis for my opinion but I think a small amount of beef is good for me. My other occasional meat source is quality sardines, usually sourced from Norway or Spain. Sardines: the “you either love them or hate them” food :-)

Re: The Latest Study on Red Meat and Heart Disease: A Red Herring

#65

Post by Gatsky »

galangalalgol wrote: post #55
Gatsky wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The study I cited was of mammals. We aren't going to learn anything useful from the lifestyle of cold-blooded reptiles. For one, their metabolic rate is much lower.

Likewise comparing ourselves to obligate carnivores, or obligate herbivores is also less useful. Ideally you'd want omnivores that for one reason or another excluded meat from the diet, or did not. Right?

Not really. The key question is whether meat is carcinogenic or not. If you eat less of it, sure it will be less carcinogenic, but it won't be suddenly good for you.

There seems to be a lot of people who want to eat meat and also deny that it has various adverse health effects. The evidence is pretty clear, that's all I'm saying. What one does with that information is up to the individual. I don't do anything with it.

Re: The Latest Study on Red Meat and Heart Disease: A Red Herring

#66

Post by seibelj »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #53
OrvalWintermute wrote: post #3

I have often wondered: A - Are meats unhealthy, or, is it the food fed (grains on a foodlot) to the animal that negatively influences the health profile? [1] B - If meats are so unhealthy, why are the bushmen superfit and incredibly healthy into old age despite having a significant amount of meat ~25% in their diet? [2] & [3] I recognize that some animals raised on healthy grass-fed diets may have health profiles mor…

> Are meats unhealthy, or, is it the food fed (grains on a foodlot) to the animal that negatively influences the health profile? I think there's a difference between healthy food, okay food, and unhealthy food. Something ultra processed, high in sugar, and low in other macro and micro nutrients is probably unhealthy. I think "red meat" is unlikely to be very unhealthy - in the same way a Twinky is. But maybe pepperon…

The human body is poor at processing cellulose. You need a lot of plants to equal the nutrients from meat. You can do it, but a cheeseburger, a multivitamin, adequate sun, and good exercise is also a healthy lifestyle.

Re: The Latest Study on Red Meat and Heart Disease: A Red Herring

#67

Post by denton-scratch »

Fargren wrote: post #51
HidyBush wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a disingenuous reply. We are not talking about cyanide here or some strange nutrient that you can overdose if you're not careful. A serving of whole grains every day (just read the back of the box if you're unsure what the quantities are) is solely beneficial for you and unless you have a medical condition you simply can't go wrong.

I was trying to be flippant, which is fun for me but obviously not very helpful, so let me rephrase my answer. I agree there is a non-zero amount of grains that is healthy to consume, but your answer doesn't say anything about what that amount should be, and as such just states something that is pretty obvious. It would improve your answer a lot if you stated which quantities you are thinking of, and even more if you…

I gave up on nutrition scientists a couple of decades ago.

I've taken the view that my stomach is my best guide to what I ought to eat. That's convenient, because jamming food down my throat that I don't actually fancy makes me gag.

I end up eating a mix of veg and red (mostly) meat. The veg consists mostly of grains (pasta, rice, wholemeal toast) - I don't much care for rabbit food. I eat red meat daily, but in tiny quantities. I have a very small steak once a week or so. The steak isn't small because I'm scared of red meat; it's small because that's how much I want to eat. Tonight, I will eat Brocolli Mornay (broccoli-cheese).

I eat refined sugar. Not much, but it doesn't frighten me; the sugar in refined sugar is either the same as the sugar molecules that occur in all foods, or suffers the same metabolic destiny (it's either excreted, or turns into glucose). I am liberal with butter when cooking; fat makes food appetising, and it's hard to make tasty food without using fat.

I'm overweight, but the main reason for that is that I drink a lot of booze - not that my diet is no good.

I think nutritionists should focus on teaching people how to listen to their stomachs more, and to nutritionists less.

Re: The Latest Study on Red Meat and Heart Disease: A Red Herring

#68

Post by ZeroGravitas »

idlehand wrote: post #63
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a False Dichotomy: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma If you can't argue well for your point, you talk about how bad something else is, with the implication that those are the only two options. Coal is bad, worse than nuclear. But those are not the only two options. And when comparing something that uses energy, like recycling, it's not a fair assumption for electric powered things to assume they are…

At least in Germany, they shut down the nuclear plants before the coal plants. When you shut down or decline to maintain, upgrade and expand nuclear, in favor of renewables which do not yet exist, fossil energy (coal, oil, or natural gas) tends to fill the gap. Just look at Germany. Imagine how much better things would have been today if they'd shut down their fossil power plants before the nuclear plants.

Or, how much better things could have been if they'd not only considered 2 options, but instead built more solar, and more wind, and more interconnections, and installed heat pumps, and had their car industry not pointlessly fought the inevitable EV transition for so long.

Sorry, I forgot, you only want me to choose between nuclear and coal.

Well, coal is definately worse than nuclear, so if everything else was equal I'd definately choose nuclear as the better option. But, since they intend to phase both of them out, and since the Greens got some power recently they've accelerated the coal phase out by nearly a decade, and they have a carbon tax and emmission controls which mean they won't actually run the coal plants as much as they otherwise would and it's mostly an insurance policy, I'm not really that fussed.

I'm still annoyed that it took them so long to get on the EV bandwagon though, but they did a lot of good work with solar so I guess it evens out.

Re: The Latest Study on Red Meat and Heart Disease: A Red Herring

#69

Post by mark_l_watson »

pfdietz wrote: post #23

"If TMAO is their answer, however, they should really be warning against fish, not meat. Cod yields 65+ times more TMAO than beef, and halibut, at least 100 times more, according to a 1999 study that examined the effects of 46 foods on TMAO excreted in human urine. Carrots, cauliflower, peas, peanuts and potatoes also lead to far more TMAO than beef."

I agree, be careful what kind of fish you consume. I really like sardines (tasty!) and they have much less heavy metals, etc. than larger fish that are higher up the food chain.
Post reply on HN