'Serious errors' in research linking deaths to red meat • Hacker News Board

Re: 'Serious errors' in research linking deaths to red meat

#211

Post by evandijk70 » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 9:46 AM UTC

Enginerrrd wrote: post #46

dale_glass wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Individual studies shouldn't be the primary focus. It shouldn't fall to every individual researcher to be fully accurate and honest. This is just not possible because people are imperfect, and have all the wrong incentives in many cases. What we need is a system designed to deal with this better. My suggestion would be greater incentives to the publication of negative results, and incentives to reproduce research. Cr…

Peronsally, IMO: you should submit methodology--including the data analysis and statistical tests you'll perform, to a journal before the study has been conducted. Then, they say yes or no and if yes you perform the study and as long as it is performed to the approved specifications, you get published.

It sounds nice, but this will make for very boring journals with 90% negative results due to problems with the methodology.

Here an example of a typical project, where researchers are interested in the role of gene X in blood vessel formation in cancer, which could make it a good target for a cancer treatment. They want to knock the gene out and measure the blood vessel formation in an in vitro model.

Publication 1.

- We attempted to knock this gene out in this cell line, but due to an infection the cell line died. The installation was sterilized, the stored master cell bank was unfrozen, and we updated our sterilization protocols.

Publication 2.

- We attempted to knock this gene out in this cell line, but sequencing showed that there were off-target effects introduced. Reagents should be changed to be more specific.

Publication 3.

- The gene was succesfully knocked, but we found that a homologous gene appeared to activate the same pathway. The homologous gene should be knocked out as well to study the function of the gene.

Publication 4.

- The gene was successfully knocked out by disabling the gene and its homologue. The assay we used to study blood vessel formation was flawed. Due to insufficient oxygen supply, the positive and negative controls for blood vessel formation did not grow. New experiments should increase oxygen flow.

Publication 5.

- We successfully studied the function of the gene and found that it does not impact blood vessel formation in cell line x.

This is how the majority of research projects end up.

However, other researchers will be looking for a biological target to treat cancer X, and the information obtained by this series of experiments is not interesting. This is just one out of 99% of 30,000 genes that are not suitable treatment targets.

The conclusions are only interesting for researchers focused on gene x (and maybe its homologue), and potentially for researchers developing methodology. Questions answered were different than the original ones posed.

Re: 'Serious errors' in research linking deaths to red meat

#212

Post by RappingBoomer » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 10:33 AM UTC

robertlagrant wrote: post #191

Never mind red meat deaths. Studies on kidney stones have been found to often involve p-forcing.

what do you mean by that?

Re: 'Serious errors' in research linking deaths to red meat

#213

Post by ozim » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 11:48 AM UTC

ravenstine wrote: post #24

crims0n wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree but for different reasons... namely, our ancestors have lived off red meat for hundreds of thousands of years. We can still eat red meat our entire lives with minimal, or at the very least, hard to link direct consequences to our health. It can literally sustain a human for their entire lifespan - so asserting it is unhealthy should be an extremely high bar.

Not even just hundreds of thousands, but millions . At least 2.6 million, and possibly as far back as 4.5 million. But yes, with the data being in favor of humans being meat eaters, absent any potential health consequences from such a diet (not that I personally believe there are), the science should be far more rigorous. Actually, much of it isn't science, because epidemiology is not a science any more than "compute…

Discussion is about red meat not just "meat".

I somehow don't believe people ate meat in quantities we do today. Though yea people ate meat.

I can go to supermarket and eat red meat/chicken every day of the week - to hunt large animal it could take couple days. Of course there was more animals to be hunted but it is not like humans ate chicken breast all time.

They ate all kind of crappy meat, legs, tendons whatever they could eat. Best meat like steak or chicken breast was special occasion. People invented stew so they could have meat in multiple days so you eat a little bit of meat everyday.

Nowadays it is like special occasion every day.

Re: 'Serious errors' in research linking deaths to red meat

#214

Post by samatman » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 12:21 PM UTC

z9znz wrote: post #153

samatman wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's a very bold stroke, especially since most of human history is unwritten and not well understood. On the contrary, there is so much evidence of hominids, including humans, hunting and eating large game, that we name eras in prehistory after the tools constructed to aid this pursuit.

My comment wasn't long. I explain the "red" meat point just below that line which you have highlighted. Indeed humans have probably always consumed some form of animal protein. But there's a lot more going on than just buying cheap ground beef from the supermarket as we can do now for very little cost.

It's not a probably.

That and your carrying the goalposts with you as you wander about makes this an unproductive conversation to continue.

Re: 'Serious errors' in research linking deaths to red meat

#215

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 1:15 PM UTC

gwerbret wrote: post #35

Of the lead author of this critical letter, the article says: "In her initial correspondence with The Lancet, Stanton declared that she was a part-time employee of Devenish Nutrition, an agricultural-technology and animal-feed company in which she also holds shares."

[deleted]

Re: 'Serious errors' in research linking deaths to red meat

#216

Post by yboris » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 1:42 PM UTC

netmonk wrote: post #111

yboris wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Poorly aligned incentives" in the nutritional sciences is, as far as I can tell, mostly various food lobbies getting their product to look good. The reason there is "confusion" about whether many animal products are good or bad is because the corporations making billions of dollars off the product fund biased research. Consider looking at the research digests from a non-profit (that sells no products, has no ads, et…

How a non-profit pays for hosting website cost, writing report, and so on and so on… being a non-profit doesn’t mean you are tied to corporations and free of any conflict of interest. If you start looking carefully you will see that most non-profit org aren’t unbiased and honest. And since long time… For instance this whole vegan trend is based on some radical religious opinion to control fertility and lower class re…

> vegan trend is based on some radical religious opinion

What a bold empirical claim. Could you share any evidence of this?

Re: 'Serious errors' in research linking deaths to red meat

#217

Post by latexr » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 2:12 PM UTC

netmonk wrote: post #207

latexr wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I worship Darwin and let the vegans dying from malnutrition. Please don’t be snarky.¹ Known athletes trivially disprove that claim.² ³ ¹ https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ² https://www.mensjournal.com/sports/nate-diaz-and-other-vegan... ³ https://www.livekindly.com/vegan-athletes-swear-by-plants/

You didn’t let them live enough long. Also please provide the complémentation list ( all the chemical they need to add into their daily diet to sustain this narrative). No need to cherry pick far right elements of the bell curve. For centuries diet poor in meat is associated with bad health, shorter life and multiple specific diseases. This topic is widely reported on old littérature from 17th 18th and 19th centuries…

> You didn’t let them live enough long.

Which cuts both ways. Neither of us know when they will die.

> No need to cherry pick far right elements of the bell curve.

Your comment specifically mentioned Darwin and dying. Most people will take that as quip on the “survival of the fittest” phrase, so I showed you examples of the fittest.

> all the chemical they need to add into their daily diet

Even if that were true, it does not support your point. Your claim was of malnutrition, you’re now shifting the goalpost to a value judgement on how that nutrition is ingested. All food is made up of chemical substances¹.

> This topic is widely reported on old littérature from 17th 18th and 19th centuries.

After asking for concrete data, your rebuttal is to offer none? I know we’re amidst a replication crisis², but a general hand wave to unspecified publications which don’t take into account the last century of science doesn’t advance the conversation.

¹ https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/topics/topic/chemicals-food

² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis

Re: 'Serious errors' in research linking deaths to red meat

#218

Post by taylodl » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 2:37 PM UTC

This is how science is supposed to work. There really doesn't appear to be anything to see here.

Re: 'Serious errors' in research linking deaths to red meat

#219

Post by ok123456 » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 3:36 PM UTC

srveale wrote: post #154

ok123456 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> Vegans always make sure to tell you. How do you know this? Hint, you can't. And you didn't answer how you are assessing people's health. > Yes people should be accountable to themselves for their diet So we are in agreement

> And you didn't answer how you are assessing people's health.

Skin. Hair. Strength. BMI. Do they look old for their age. Not being skinny fat.

Re: 'Serious errors' in research linking deaths to red meat

#220

Post by watwut » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 5:41 PM UTC

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #192

watwut wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cause you need to eat specific plants to NOT get anemia over time. If your choice of plants is pepper, carrots, cucumber, tomatoes, salad, potatoes, you get no iron. You can eat plants and get enough iron (eat beans, also easy with meat), but it happens to be one condition I know about that most random dietary advice easily leads to.

Meat has iron. They don't say to be vegan, they say to eat mostly plants.

If all you follow is eat "mostly plants, minimally processed" you are unlikely to eat enough meat to get enough iron. Especially if you are a woman. For the record, you can get enough iron with vegan diet too, but you need to set up food that way.

My issue is not with specific vegan/vegetarian/meat diet. My issue is with "all you need to know is this thing" kind of slogans a out diet, that are not true. You need to know more and you need to take into account a lot more too.