Red meat is not a health risk
A new study slams years of shoddy research
Studies have been linking red meat consumption to health problems like heart disease, stroke, and cancer for years, but these invariably suffer from methodological limitations.
In an unprecedented effort, health scientists at the University of Washington scrutinized decades of research on red meat consumption and its links to various health outcomes, introducing a new way to assess health risks in the process.
They only found weak evidence that unprocessed red meat consumption is linked to colorectal cancer, breast cancer, type 2 diabetes, and ischemic heart disease, and no link at all between eating red meat and stroke.
Studies have been linking red meat consumption to health problems like heart disease, stroke, and cancer for years. But nestled in the recesses of those published papers are notable limitations.
Nearly all the research is observational, unable to tease out causation convincingly. Most are plagued by confounding variables. For example, perhaps meat eaters simply eat fewer vegetables, or tend to smoke more, or exercise less?
Moreover, many are based on self-reported consumption. The simple fact is that people can’t remember what they eat with any accuracy. And lastly, the reported effect sizes in these scientific papers are often small.
Is a supposed 15 percent greater risk of cancer really worth worrying about?
In a new, unprecedented effort, scientists at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) scrutinized decades of research on red meat consumption and its links to various health outcomes, formulating a new rating system to communicate health risks in the process.
Their findings mostly dispel any concerns about eating red meat.
“We found weak evidence of association between unprocessed red meat consumption and colorectal cancer, breast cancer, type 2 diabetes and ischemic heart disease. Moreover, we found no evidence of an association between unprocessed red meat and ischemic stroke or hemorrhagic stroke,” they summarized.
The IHME scientists had been observing the shoddy nature of health science for decades. Each year, hundreds of frankly lazy studies are published that simply attempt to find an observational link between some action — eating a food for example — and a health outcome, like death or disease.
In the end, owing to sloppy methods, varying subject populations, and inconsistent statistical measures, everything, especially different foods, seems to be both associated and not associated with cancer. How is the lay public supposed to interpret this mess?
A new system to establish risk
And so, the researchers came up with the burden of proof risk function, a novel statistical method to quantitatively “evaluate and summarize evidence of risk across different risk-outcome pairs.” Using the function, any researcher can evaluate published data for a certain health risk, then, using the function, compute a single number that translates to a one- through five-star rating system.
“A one-star rating indicates that there may be no true association between the behavior or condition and the health outcome. Two stars indicates the behavior or condition is at least associated with a 0-15 percent change in the likelihood of a health outcome, while three stars indicates at least a 15-50 percent change, four stars indicates at least a 50-85 percent change, and five stars indicates a more than 85 percent change.”
When the IHME utilized this function on red meat consumption and its potential links to various adverse health outcomes, they found that none warranted greater than a two-star rating.
“The evidence for a direct vascular or heath risk from eating meat regularly is very low, to the point that there is probably no risk,” commented Dr. Steven Novella, a Yale neurologist and president of the New England Skeptical Society. “There is, however, more evidence for a health risk from eating too few vegetables. That is really the risk of a high-meat diet, those meat calories are displacing vegetable calories.”
The IHME team plans to utilize their burden of proof function on all sorts of health risks, creating a massive, freely accessible database.
“In addition to helping consumers, our analysis can guide policymakers in developing health and wellness education programs, so that they focus on the risk factors with the greatest impact on health,” Dr. Emmanuela Gakidou, professor of health metrics sciences at IHME and a lead author of the study, said in a statement. “Health researchers can also use this analysis to identify areas where current evidence is weak and more definitive studies are needed.”
See more here bigthink.com
Header image: Metro UK
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Tom
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Well duh…humans would have become extinct hundreds or perhaps thousands of years ago if red meat was that poisonous or harmful.
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Tom Anderson
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Hi there, fellow predators. I love the cartoon of two Eskimos sitting at a block of ice in an igloo. One asks the other, “Meat and fat – what else is there to eat?”
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Geraint HUghes
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Low meat consumption generally means low iron and low vitamin k2. These both lead to long term deficiency problems, with low K2 being calcification of arteries. Yet the MSM never reports on this and pretends the opposite.
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Anthony Bright-Paul
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All these scientific studies take no account of a Coarse Body and a Fine Body. Total health depends upon the health of the Fine Body. In normal science the Fine Body does not exist. While everyone has their opinions on the exercise needed for the health of the Coarse Body and on diet etcetera, the health of the Fine Body is totally overlooked, as its existence is not even assumed. Yet I see these Fine Bodies day after day, exact replicas of the coarse body, whether in adults or very young children. I actually watch the separation of one from the other – it is quite fascinating, mostly coming out of the back, but sometimes carried forward on the chest. Sometimes a face half slips out, as with a friend of my wife’s with Parkinsons. My own health is excellent for my age, getting on for 94 with 20-20 vision. You may remember I wrote a book called ‘Climate for the Layman’ inspired largely by the late Hans Schreuder. Any comments?
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sunsettommy
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Glad to see you here and posting even at age 94, it has been a long time since I see you last.
Cheers for Anthony!
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Moffin
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Hip Hip, Hooray!
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