Meat and early mortality

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.