Meat and early mortality

queenpushycat

Oh jeez.. so this is the root of "all evil"... I'm a vegetarian... but ... please. PLEASE STOP THIS KINDA THREAD. I had enough arguments between vegan rules and meat rules (personally I got pissed when my own boyfriend who eats meat are trying to pick a fight on me for that. it's stupid.)

Krahn1984

Ohmygosh, this is out of control...

secretlobster

I'm going to go eat an entire delicious cow and contemplate my impending death. Peace

tidmutt

I believe... when studies like this are performed, they are looking for a specific outcome. Only the data pertinent to the specific outcome is collected. Someone could do a study on how beef benefits the body and make the results look like beef is essential to take your next breath.

Believe it or not, most scientists actually want to get the most accurate results possible. I hate this "they were just looking for x" argument.

The point is not that scientists are all evil and wanting to advance their own agenda just that selection bias is part of human nature, it is incredibly difficult to avoid and we don't even realize we are doing it.

lukeout007

1 month and 5 days...

This thread was last posted in 1 month and 5 days ago. Really?

JPod279

This short video explains the results of the meat and early mortality Harvard study that was released yesterday:

http://nutritionfacts.org/videos/harvards-meat-and-mortality-studies/

Please note that even meat-eaters who eat their veggies are at greater risk of cancer, heart disease and strokes than herbivores are. And, to me, it's not so much about how you die, but rather how you live. I want to reduce my risk of debilitating illness, and if that means I live to a ripe old age, so much the better. PLANTS RULE!

Why do you hate cows? Don't you want to see them fulfill their place in this world and be made into a juicy steak? Why deny them their sole purpose in life? You are obviously a anti-cowmite.

tidmutt

Also, if red meat is banned, then all cattle ranchers would stop raising cattle. If we have less cattle, then that will help global warming. Cattle produce 70 and 120 kg of Methane per year (cow farts) and this Methane contributes to green house.

Soooo...I usually believe that things are researched for certain reasons. Saying red meat will kill us helps the government to ban red meat (obviously not right away, but maybe over time) and then the Government can kill two birds with one stone (close some corporations (fast food restaurants) and help global warming) !

I have nothing against vegetarians or vegans, but I have to say that ive seen this 'if only there were no cattle....' argument a 100 times on political boards. The fact is, cow gas is but a teenie drop in the global warming ocean because the real problem is US. We breed like bloody rabbits with no thought of sustainability. The FACT is that we cannot afford (as in, there are not enough global resources) for everyone to live as we live in the West. Our societies WHOLLY depend on keeping other parts of the world at subsistence level....and they are defying us; they're getting richer (India and China are good examples.). The current global population growth is unsustainable and killing off cows won't change a damn thing in that respect.

We (humans) have two choices; either Keep the third world starving and undeveloped in order to sustain our current standard of living in the West OR curb our population worldwide by heavily deincentivising having children. There is a third option, but that involves a lot of luck and a damn good retro-virus to wipe a few billion of us out.

I suppose this is somewhat off topic, but the overly pessimistic tone compels me to respond... I won't disagree on some of your points, but seriously, really think about what you are saying. Most of the "developed world" has near-zero or negative population growth, in a way, the population issue is taking care of itself, the richer and more educated people become the less children they tend to have for various theorized reasons. Most developed countries have an immigration program in part to offset their low population growth and provide sufficient labor to support their aging populations. As the developing world progresses and becomes richer (which as you pointed out is happening before our eyes) they will most likely see a decline in population growth as well. In fact, the official statistics shows world population decline after it reaches a peak a decade or two from now. These couple of decades are a problem yes, but if we can work our way through that period population will start to actually decline.

The other point I'd like to make is that your assumptions of dire consequences to our planet assume a static level of technological development. That is most unlikely. Growth in knowledge is exponential, there are solutions for all of our problems, be it pollution, agriculture, energy, all it takes is the desire to develop them. Decades ago there was great concern that the world would starve, but a revolution in agriculture prevented that. I'm not saying we should be arrogant in our approach to our consumption of natural resources but this doom and gloom is just more of the same. There have always been those who claim the end is near, but yet somehow we're still here. We don't need a retro virus to wipe out a few billion of us as you claim, just the smart application of the right solutions which would allow the entire world to enjoy a high standard of living. Just look at the amazing efforts of a whole new generation of rich philanthropists such as Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and so on. They have the resources to actually transform the world. Despite all our problems I think this is an amazing and gloriously optimistic time to be alive, all 7.08 Billion of us.

tidmutt

Humans have been living long, healthy lives eating meat for thousands (and maybe even millions) of years.

This study is biased and makes my head spin like the exorcist.

Modern Homo sapiens have been around less than 200,000 years (I teach human evolution at the college level). Also, they weren't eating the highly processed and unhealthily raised meats we do, and did not get meat nearly as often as we do.

Sigh... these arguments about how long humans have been around are just splitting hairs. The argument is based on what foods we consumed for a large part of our evolution the theory being that natural selection would result in us being adapted to consume those foods. If ancestors to modern humans have been eating meat for millions of years then the theory would be that we may be well adapted to eating meat, regardless whether modern humans have only been around for 100-200K years. Note: In this case I'm not trying to argue for and against, just clarifying this line of reasoning. The modern human vs extinct ancestor point is mostly meaningless in this context.

tidmutt

If you get a chance watch "Forks over Spoons" on video. I have been on a plant based diet for 14 days and everything is feeling better. My addiction to food and sweets have subsided.

Don't you mean Forks Over Knives?

I turned it off in disgust when they started showing a model for atherosclerosis that is vastly over simplified and decades out of date. The movie is just the regurgitation of Campbell's China Study.

tidmutt

This short video explains the results of the meat and early mortality Harvard study that was released yesterday:

http://nutritionfacts.org/videos/harvards-meat-and-mortality-studies/

Please note that even meat-eaters who eat their veggies are at greater risk of cancer, heart disease and strokes than herbivores are. And, to me, it's not so much about how you die, but rather how you live. I want to reduce my risk of debilitating illness, and if that means I live to a ripe old age, so much the better. PLANTS RULE!

Hey Vega,

It's me, the Mutt, I'm back. Ready to debunk your theories in a calm and respectful manner.

For my 2 cents, yet again this is another case of skipping steps of the Scientific Method. You don't draw conclusions from observations, you form testable hypothesis which then you test with controlled experiments. Anything else is BAD SCIENCE.

Food questionnaires every 4 years? Seriously? Really? Give. Me. A. Break. I barely remember what I ate last week.

20% increase in death... oh geez, so my chance of death from all causes went from 10% to 12% maybe (or maybe 1% - 1.2%) because I eat red meat or maybe one of a billion other confounding variables that the research did not factor in and therefore their regressions could not hope to eliminate. It's amazing when you write the percentages differently how it's a lot less freaky.

As I've said before Verging On Vegas and also to VeggieRexiusMaximus you're going to have to do much better than this study.

Keep 'em coming!

Hope you guys are well, btw.

bcattoes

I subscribe to a number of health newsletters, including from Harvard School of Public Heath, who conducted the study mentioned in the OP. Here is what they had to say about the study in a recent newsletter. Sorry for the long post, I couldn't find a link this online so I had to copy and paste it from the newletter.

What’s the beef with red meat?

A study linking red meat and mortality lit up the media in more ways than one. Hundreds of media outlets carried reports about the study. Headline writers had a field day, with entries like “Red meat death study,” “Will red meat kill you?” and “Singing the blues about red meat.”

The warning from the study, done by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health, sounded ominous. Every extra daily serving of unprocessed red meat (steak, hamburger, pork, etc.) increased the risk of dying prematurely by 13%. Processed red meat (hot dogs, sausage, bacon, and the like) upped the risk by 20%. The results were published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

The study included more than 121,000 men and women followed for an average of 24 years. All submitted information about their diets every four years. Over the course of the study, almost 24,000 of the participants died. Death rates among those who ate the most red meat were higher than among those who ate the least.

Because this was the largest, longest study to date on the connection between eating red meat and survival, the findings are worth paying attention to. But they aren’t the last word on the topic, and the numbers need to be put into perspective.

A month ago, a Japanese study of more than 51,000 men and women followed for 16 years found no connection between moderate meat consumption (up to three ounces a day) and premature death. Last year, a study by different researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health found no connection between eating unprocessed red meat and the development of heart disease and diabetes, though there was a strong connection with eating processed red meat.

Now for the numbers

Upping your risk of dying by 13% or 20% may nudge you toward becoming a vegetarian—but those are relative risks, comparing death rates in the group eating the least meat with those eating the most. The absolute risks (see them for unprocessed red meat in the table below) sometimes help tell the story a bit more clearly. These numbers are somewhat less scary.


Deaths per 1,000 people per year


....................1 serving unprocessed meat a week...........2 servings unprocessed meat a day
Women....................................7.0..............................................................8.5

....................3 servings unprocessed meat a week...........2 servings unprocessed meat a day
Men........................................12.3...........................................................13.0

The authors of the Archives paper suggest that the increased risk from red meat may come from the saturated fat, cholesterol, and iron it delivers. Potentially cancer-causing compounds generated when cooking red meat at high could also contribute. Sodium, particularly in processed foods, may also play a role. It’s also possible that red-meat eaters may be more likely to have other risk factors for serious, life-shortening diseases.

Jeff92se

ruh roh, someone's study is not looking so good

bcattoes

ruh roh, someone's study is not looking so good

Actually, it's an excellent study. It is merely the media's depiction of the study that is not so good. As usual, they take perfectly good medical information and spin it to sound as ominous as possible. Which is probably why HSPH felt the need to critique their own study and set the record straight on what the results really mean.

Jeff92se

I was commenting on someone's use of the study as a bais of ther beliefes regarding the eating of meat and the justificate of a vegan lifestyle

tigersword

So if I eat red meat twice a day (way more than I normally do, even though I consider myself a "meatatarian") I'm 0.07% more likely to die?

Wow, yeah, that's a HUGE risk... :huh:

zen_mama

I have experience with both sides of this issue. I grew up raising livestock, was married to an avid hunter and ran a meat counter in a grocery store for years. I ate a diet that was heavy in animal proteins and would say that dairy or meat were consumed in our household 2-4 times a day. Just over 4 years ago, I decided to try a vegetarian diet to see if it would help with a minor health issue I was having. Within 2 months, I felt so much better that I stuck with it. I think a veggie diet is a great lifestyle choice, but I do not believe that everyone's body thrives without meat. My personal opinion about the link between disease and the consumption of animal proteins is that it has more to do with the way the meat is raised and all the chemicals and hormones being pumped into the animals by the factory farming industry. Animals raised in a more natural environment (cows grazing on pasture vs. those fed a chemically processed high fat/protein ration) are just healthier so their meat is healthier. I also feel that the overly processed foods that are a staple of most American diets these days play a major role in our health. Yes- our grandparents grew up eating bacon and eggs and cheese and whole milk and real butter and many of them thrived on these protein rich diets, but they also were not consuming highly processed fats and sugars like we do now.

bcattoes

I was commenting on someone's use of the study as a bais of ther beliefes regarding the eating of meat and the justificate of a vegan lifestyle

OIC Sorry, I misunderstood.

Vi0l33t

Plenty of people in my family lived until their late 90s eating meat everyday. Each person will react to foods differently. Personally I cannot have a lot of carbs or my liver gets messed up. I also can't have gluten. Therefore, I refuse to also take meat out of my diet. Meat and veggies are delicious together.

I have no issues with a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle (a very good friend of mine is vegan), I just don't like feeling pushed into other ways of eating through fear tactics.

Amen.

ironanimal

So if I eat red meat twice a day (way more than I normally do, even though I consider myself a "meatatarian") I'm 0.07% more likely to die?

Wow, yeah, that's a HUGE risk... :huh:

You're just THAT much more likely to choke on a particularly tough bit of steak.

PaleoPath4Lyfe

I have experience with both sides of this issue. I grew up raising livestock, was married to an avid hunter and ran a meat counter in a grocery store for years. I ate a diet that was heavy in animal proteins and would say that dairy or meat were consumed in our household 2-4 times a day. Just over 4 years ago, I decided to try a vegetarian diet to see if it would help with a minor health issue I was having. Within 2 months, I felt so much better that I stuck with it. I think a veggie diet is a great lifestyle choice, but I do not believe that everyone's body thrives without meat. My personal opinion about the link between disease and the consumption of animal proteins is that it has more to do with the way the meat is raised and all the chemicals and hormones being pumped into the animals by the factory farming industry. Animals raised in a more natural environment (cows grazing on pasture vs. those fed a chemically processed high fat/protein ration) are just healthier so their meat is healthier. I also feel that the overly processed foods that are a staple of most American diets these days play a major role in our health. Yes- our grandparents grew up eating bacon and eggs and cheese and whole milk and real butter and many of them thrived on these protein rich diets, but they also were not consuming highly processed fats and sugars like we do now.

Your right, our grandparents and parents weren't consuming these processed fake foods. They ate real food that had to be cooked.

Grass fed, pastured meats from local farms is the way to go and helps the environment and local economy also.

Matt_Wild

A study ignoring socio economic factors, intake of other substance, legal and not etc is worthless IMO.