The Latest Study on Red Meat and Heart Disease: A Red Herring • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by julkali » Sun, Aug 07, 2022, 12:41 PM UTC

pessimizer wrote: post #88

julkali wrote: post #84

This may be only tangentially relevant, but the author is known to be a pro-meat lobbyist ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Teicholz ).

Could you pull the quote out that says she's a lobbyist? I can't find it, and without it I can't figure out if you're misusing lobbyist to mean "is known to have had this opinion before."

Definition of lobbying per Wikipedia[0]:

> the act of lawfully attempting to influence the actions, policies, or decisions of government officials, most often legislators or members of regulatory agencies.

A one minute Google search revealed a quote from this politico article[1]:

> She [Nina Teicholz] is also an organizer of a fledgling group that is engaged in a vigorous advocacy campaign to reshape how the U.S. government determines what makes a healthy diet.

I recognize my initial quote didn't validate my claim, but it is nevertheless correct. And it may be true that _professional_ lobbyist need to be registered in the USA, but the term can also (perhaps only in other regions of the world) refer to any person lobbying.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying [1]: https://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/the-money-behind-the-...

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

#142

Post by origin_path » Sun, Aug 07, 2022, 2:18 PM UTC

123409871234 wrote: post #91

The author of this post is not a scientist, but rather a journalist with no scientific credentials, who has a long history of being a promoter and propagandist for the meat industry: "Meat lobby peddles doubt to undermine dietary guidelines The Dietary Guidelines for Americans, updated every five years, never fails to cause a stir. For the current revision, released in February, a federally appointed scientific commi…

The field of nutrition is self-undermining given how frequently it's inverted its advice, and the prevalence of pseudo-scientific studies.

As COVID has shown, "scientists" are incredibly powerful in our society to the extent that they can shut down civilization overnight, force billions of people to take experimental substances, repeatedly lie to both population and politicians in order to generate compliance with no consequences, eliminate all criticism of themselves anywhere except individual blogs and all this with no accountability mechanisms whatsoever.

So, good for Nina? We need journalists investigating and undermining pseudo-scientists, just as it's widely recognized that a healthy democracy needs journalists to investigate and undermine corrupt/lying politicians.

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

#143

Post by mrandish » Sun, Aug 07, 2022, 5:00 PM UTC

copperx wrote: post #132

mrandish wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Due to some fairly serious diet-related personal health issues (obesity and several related co-morbidities), 5 years ago I started closely following nutrition science. In this time, the clearest thing I've learned is that the vast majority of "Nutrition Science" is poor science - to the extent of hardly being science at all. * If the data is based on diary data, it's noisy to the extent of being nearly useless and no…

I agree. And al of that leads to information fatigue. After reading many studies, I'm even worried about "common sense" nutrition knowledge, for example: * I'm worried about increasing my fruit and vegetable intake, because that will raise my pesticide burden. It is not clear whether the benefits of fruits and vegetables make up for the increased probability of cancer of pesticide consumption. Organic produce is not…

I agree it's confusing. If longevity is a goal then moderation and balance in all things is key. I think there's also decent evidence for keeping your body on the "lean" side of "healthy weight" per the age-adjusted BMI charts through moderate caloric restriction. The evidence is growing for the near-term health benefits of minimizing consumption of processed foods. Primarily all the stuff in bags and boxes that can sit on store shelves for weeks and months and not spoil.

I've also learned to not place much value on "organic" labels. It's expensive and hard to do correctly and not universally better even when it is done correctly. The external verification requirements are almost entirely based on remotely filed "self-reports" with inspections.

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

#144

Post by mypastself » Sun, Aug 07, 2022, 5:55 PM UTC

copperx wrote: post #128

mypastself wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m having trouble locating it at the moment, but an article was shared here a few months ago that suggested something similar happened with health and dietary fat, back when it was still considered harmful. The correlation gradually disappeared after enough studies debunked the causality hypothesis.

Debunked the causality hypothesis meaning that probably saturated fat intake, after going down on average, no longer correlates with coronary disease? Could you ELI5 that? I'm not familiar with the research or the claims.

Debunking the idea that fat intake causes high cholesterol and other health issues. There seemed to be some correlation, but causality was spurious.

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

#145

Post by samatman » Sun, Aug 07, 2022, 6:45 PM UTC

luckman212 wrote: post #126

samatman wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider a cheeseburger healthy. The custom of serving them with french fried potatoes and a milkshake or cola gives them a bit of guilt by association, but meat, some cheese, some vegetables, and a serving of bread? Don't see an issue at all.

I'm no food snob and enjoy a good burger as much as the next guy, but are you really calling a leaf of lettuce, 2 pickle slices and a squirt of HFCS-laden ketchup "some vegetables"? Ehh...

That doesn't sound like a good burger per se? I like a couple leaves of lettuce, in August definitely nice slices of tomato, onions grilled or raw, and generally put my six pickle slices in a delicate daisy wheel. I've become a convert to the under-the-meat school of burger 'topping', 2 centimeters of vegetable matter will survive this without the dreaded backslide.

A salad it ain't, but let's not bicker about the meaning of 'some' eh?

A burger with ketchup on it won't pass my lips on purpose, I'll only judge you very slightly for it and you hopefully won't notice. A bit of pan fat or a very thin layer of mayo, mustard on occasion.

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

#146

Post by FredPret » Mon, Aug 08, 2022, 3:42 AM UTC

copperx wrote: post #135

FredPret wrote: post #74

There never has and never will be a good stats-based study on human diet. We are the most complex things we know of in the universe. Confounding factors abound. Isolating one is impossible, unless researchers have access to a million identical twins separated at birth and forced to eat a certain diet all their lives, in which case there’s probably a huge human rights crisis going on… and the study would still be inva…

I don't think handwaving away an entire field of study is going to benefit you in any way, flawed as that field might be. Living is easy with eyes closed. Dying is too.

Studies with n=10 aren't opening any eyes. They are adding garbage to a crowded information landscape.

Even in the larger studies, there are so many issues. Take the first one about fat and heart disease. Riddled with errors you'll find warnings about in most data science for beginners tutorials.

Or the one about the Mediterranean diet - zero thought given to confounding effects regarding many possible factors. People who eat the Mediterranean diet also live near the sea, and share genetic, cultural, linguistic, political, and economic factors. Sure, maybe it's the fish and olives, but maybe it's another one of the billion things they have in common versus other Europeans or Americans.

This style of studying human metabolism is net-negative. Ignoring it is indeed a benefit. On the other hand, tell me that sugar metabolizes into known toxins, and that's a very different story.

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

#147

Post by Gordonjcp » Mon, Aug 08, 2022, 8:02 AM UTC

galangalalgol wrote: post #52

BirAdam wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expensive perhaps, but not that expensive. Difficult? It’s in every Kroger which is the largest grocer in the USA (afaicr), and it’s also in every Walmart. There’s a lot of beef and a lot of grass fed beef in the USA. If America simply stopped wasting so much food it would likely lower prices enough to make higher quality foods more affordable.

100% grass fed or "grass fed and grass finished" is a bit harder to find I think?

100% grass fed is the default, although strictly speaking over winter cows would be fed silage and "hard feed" which might contain grains and legumes.

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

#148

Post by JeremyNT » Mon, Aug 08, 2022, 3:30 PM UTC

123409871234 wrote: post #91

The author of this post is not a scientist, but rather a journalist with no scientific credentials, who has a long history of being a promoter and propagandist for the meat industry: "Meat lobby peddles doubt to undermine dietary guidelines The Dietary Guidelines for Americans, updated every five years, never fails to cause a stir. For the current revision, released in February, a federally appointed scientific commi…

We've reached the point where, if "substack" is in the URL and it's not a person who I am already familiar with, I ignore it completely. Maybe these bloggers are right, maybe they're not, but I don't have enough cycles to actually vet them all myself.

Nutrition research is complicated, but the odds of a nutrition blogger on substack unlocking some "secret" that won't eventually make it into more mainstream science publications seems relatively low to me.

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

#149

Post by jononomo » Mon, Aug 08, 2022, 7:21 PM UTC

123409871234 wrote: post #91

The author of this post is not a scientist, but rather a journalist with no scientific credentials, who has a long history of being a promoter and propagandist for the meat industry: "Meat lobby peddles doubt to undermine dietary guidelines The Dietary Guidelines for Americans, updated every five years, never fails to cause a stir. For the current revision, released in February, a federally appointed scientific commi…

Oh, wow -- I love Nina Teicholz! I came across this talk by her a few years ago and it made a massive impression on me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2UnOryQiIY&t=29s

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

#150

Post by jononomo » Mon, Aug 08, 2022, 7:22 PM UTC

JeremyNT wrote: post #148

123409871234 wrote: post #91

The author of this post is not a scientist, but rather a journalist with no scientific credentials, who has a long history of being a promoter and propagandist for the meat industry: "Meat lobby peddles doubt to undermine dietary guidelines The Dietary Guidelines for Americans, updated every five years, never fails to cause a stir. For the current revision, released in February, a federally appointed scientific commi…

We've reached the point where, if "substack" is in the URL and it's not a person who I am already familiar with, I ignore it completely. Maybe these bloggers are right, maybe they're not, but I don't have enough cycles to actually vet them all myself. Nutrition research is complicated, but the odds of a nutrition blogger on substack unlocking some "secret" that won't eventually make it into more mainstream science pu…

Not only is Nina Teicholz a well-established journalist, but she is the author of this book, which made a huge splash and has 2,000+ Amazon Reviews: https://www.amazon.com/Big-Fat-Surprise-Butter-Healthy/dp/14...