All red meat is bad for you

Bonkai · Mar 13, 2012

Says new study, I'm a bit skeptical of course as a meat eater but this definitely could have profound implications of diet if the "any amount is bad" part is true. Anywho here's the article.

http://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-red-meat-20120313,0,565423.story

Eating red meat — any amount and any type — appears to significantly increase the risk of premature death, according to a long-range study that examined the eating habits and health of more than 110,000 adults for more than 20 years.

For instance, adding just one 3-ounce serving of unprocessed red meat — picture a piece of steak no bigger than a deck of cards — to one's daily diet was associated with a 13% greater chance of dying during the course of the study.

Even worse, adding an extra daily serving of processed red meat, such as a hot dog or two slices of bacon, was linked to a 20% higher risk of death during the study.

"Any red meat you eat contributes to the risk," said An Pan, a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston and lead author of the study, published online Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Crunching data from thousands of questionnaires that asked people how frequently they ate a variety of foods, the researchers also discovered that replacing red meat with other foods seemed to reduce mortality risk for study participants.

Eating a serving of nuts instead of beef or pork was associated with a 19% lower risk of dying during the study. The team said choosing poultry or whole grains as a substitute was linked with a 14% reduction in mortality risk; low-fat dairy or legumes, 10%; and fish, 7%.

Previous studies had associated red meat consumption with diabetes, heart disease and cancer, all of which can be fatal. Scientists aren't sure exactly what makes red meat so dangerous, but the suspects include the iron and saturated fat in beef, pork and lamb, the nitrates used to preserve them, and the chemicals created by high-temperature cooking.

The Harvard researchers hypothesized that eating red meat would also be linked to an overall risk of death from any cause, Pan said. And the results suggest they were right: Among the 37,698 men and 83,644 women who were tracked, as meat consumption increased, so did mortality risk.

In separate analyses of processed and unprocessed meats, the group found that both types appear to hasten death. Pan said that at the outset, he and his colleagues had thought it likely that only processed meat posed a health danger.

Carol Koprowski, a professor of preventive medicine at USC's Keck School of Medicine who wasn't involved in the research, cautioned that it can be hard to draw specific conclusions from a study like this because there can be a lot of error in the way diet information is recorded in food frequency questionnaires, which ask subjects to remember past meals in sometimes grueling detail.

But Pan said the bottom line was that there was no amount of red meat that's good for you.

"If you want to eat red meat, eat the unprocessed products, and reduce it to two or three servings a week," he said. "That would have a huge impact on public health."

A majority of people in the study reported that they ate an average of at least one serving of meat per day.

Pan said that he eats one or two servings of red meat per week, and that he doesn't eat bacon or other processed meats.

Cancer researcher Lawrence H. Kushi of the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland said that groups putting together dietary guidelines were likely to pay attention to the findings in the study.

"There's a pretty strong supposition that eating red meat is important — that it should be part of a healthful diet," said Kushi, who was not involved in the study. "These data basically demonstrate that the less you eat, the better."

UC San Francisco researcher and vegetarian diet advocate Dr. Dean Ornish said he gleaned a hopeful message from the study.

"Something as simple as a meatless Monday can help," he said. "Even small changes can make a difference."

Additionally, Ornish said, "What's good for you is also good for the planet."

In an editorial that accompanied the study, Ornish wrote that a plant-based diet could help cut annual healthcare costs from chronic diseases in the U.S., which exceed $1 trillion. Shrinking the livestock industry could also reduce greenhouse gas emissions and halt the destruction of forests to create pastures, he wrote.
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More than likely red meat has to be eaten in moderation to be safe and dietary sound, but I'll wait for further studies to be conducted to change my meat habits completely.

Meliai · Mar 13, 2012

Centarian societies (well, I guess I should say societies with a large percentage of people living over 100) generally do not eat red meat as well. Iron has been shown to speed the aging process.

deleted · Mar 13, 2012

Eating a serving of nuts instead of beef or pork was associated with a 19% lower risk of dying during the study.
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..

lovelyxmalia · Mar 13, 2012

If we went by every single study they did, we wouldn't be able to eat vegetables (unless we grew them ourselves), drink milk, eat any wheats (GLUTENNNN!), eat fish, poultry, red meat, and just about anything else on this planet.

Looks like we're stuck to eating grass and drinking purified water...

The grass can't be fertilized, though.

And the water can't be bottled. Plastic causes cancer.

eatlysergicacid · Mar 13, 2012

A 13% greater chance of dying is not enough to stop me from eating red meat. I love red meat.

walsh · Mar 13, 2012

Yeah, living longer isn't really a motivating factor for me. It's not the reason I don't smoke, I exercise a lot and am not fat.

tricknologist · Mar 13, 2012

People used to think that sugar was bad for you and artificial sweeteners were good for you. Now, it's almost common knowledge that some sugar is needed and artificial sweeteners are poison.

People used to think that marijuana was a dangerous drug, but anti depressants were helpful.

And there's an unending list of food and drugs that were deemed unhealthy that aren't, and just as long a list of "healthy" substitutes that are harmful.

So, excuse me if I doubt the honesty and integrity of this study and wonder about its agenda.

GoofyGooberz · Mar 13, 2012

lovelyxmalia said:

If we went by every single study they did, we wouldn't be able to eat vegetables (unless we grew them ourselves), drink milk, eat any wheats (GLUTENNNN!), eat fish, poultry, red meat, and just about anything else on this planet.

Looks like we're stuck to eating grass and drinking purified water...

The grass can't be fertilized, though.

And the water can't be bottled. Plastic causes cancer.
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I fucking love this!!!

So spot on LOL:2thumbsup:

Aerianne · Mar 13, 2012

I lost my taste for beef about 12 years ago. I may eat some chicken or have a pork chop a few times a month. It wasn't a conscious decision; it just didn't taste good to me anymore.

The Imaginary Being · Mar 13, 2012

i'd enjoy my life much less if i didn't eat meat

so to stop would be to defeat the purpose.

zombiewolf · Mar 13, 2012

Yeah you might live longer...or it'll just seem that way.

Meliai · Mar 13, 2012

Aerianne said:

I lost my taste for beef about 12 years ago. I may eat some chicken or have a pork chop a few times a month. It wasn't a conscious decision; it just didn't taste good to me anymore.
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I've lost my taste for meat recently, but mostly chicken. I ate a chicken breast last year that was the size of the entire plate. I ate like two bites and got grossed out at the sheer size of that thing. I haven't really eaten chicken since.

I think with anything, moderation is key. Red meat is a HUGE part of the American diet now, in a way that is not healthy at all. (I speak for America because I have no idea how much red meat people from other countries eat). Meat was a small part of our diet one hundred years ago. It was a luxury. Now, if fast food and the menu at most restaurants are any testament, it makes up the majority of the average America's diet. Its the food pyramid turned upside down.

zombiewolf · Mar 13, 2012

Yeah I gross-out on all that commercially grown chicken breast.
It's such a huge fad too, chicken pizza, chicken pasta, chicken subs...
it's cause its ' lean white meat'.

It's disgusting

seizedbyanger · Mar 13, 2012

Red meat is so fucking gross

Irminsul · Mar 13, 2012

People been eating meat all their lives and live to old age.
This is all bullshit.

walsh · Mar 13, 2012

zombiewolf said:

Yeah you might live longer...or it'll just seem that way.
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It's not like you'll be sitting up there going "damn, that was a pretty short I shouldn't have had so much meat".

GLENGLEN · Mar 13, 2012

Irminsul said:

People been eating meat all their lives and live to old age.
This is all bullshit.
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+......:2thumbsup:

Cheers Glen.

The Imaginary Being · Mar 14, 2012

the problem with this sort of study

is it's empirical orientation

you could likely find a positive link between wearing a certain colored socks

and lung cancer

if you looked hard enough.

it's data mining.

wyliecoyote · Mar 14, 2012

I think I will still have a steak tonite.

walsh · Mar 14, 2012

The Imaginary Being said:

the problem with this sort of study

is it's empirical orientation

you could likely find a positive link between wearing a certain colored socks and lung cancer if you looked hard enough

it's data mining.
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How? Not sure what you mean here, unless you're implying vegetarians tend to live healthier so the causal effect is dubious.

Asmodean · Mar 14, 2012

Bad for you if you want to become 100 indeed. I love the sense in most replies. Moderation is key indeed. It also depends on what you do daily of course. Some people can eat more red meat than others.
The world would be much better off if we would consume a reasonable amount of red meat instead of mixing it in almost all our meals in some way or another (like they do with chicken as well like zombiewolf said). Look at the cow industry in some places, it is equally disgusting as those gigantic chicken barns.

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