WHO says processed meats rank alongside smoking as cancer causes | Hacker News Reader

WHO says processed meats rank alongside smoking as cancer causes

theguardian.com

85 pointsdynofuz102 comments

This seems pretty misleading. The WHO put these meats in the same class in terms of certainty of being a carcinogen in humans, but I don't see any claim about the rates of cancer caused by each being comparable. That is, they're convinced that it causes some nonzero amount of cancer, but how many cancers it causes is a separate issue.

Also, the picture at the top shows a cheeseburger, but ground beef is never actually mentioned in the article as an example of "processed meats". It represents an older consensus (seemingly unrelated to the current topic apart from the shared theme of "meat bad") that excessive red meat intake contributes to health problems.

Maybe it's the Guardian's fault. The BBC article (http://www.bbc.com/news/health-34620617) does mention some numbers:

> Is meat as bad as smoking?

> No.

> Estimates suggest 34,000 deaths from cancer every year could be down to diets high in processed meat.

> That is in contrast to one million deaths from cancer caused by smoking and 600,000 attributed to alcohol each year.

  600,000 attributed to alcohol each year.

That number is a bit misleading. Does that include the deaths say due to DUI,, liver damage, poisoning?

It ideally shouldn't as we are discussing carcinogens.

Edit: Added additional alcohol related deaths.

There are only about 30000 fatalities from all car driving per year.

  The report indicates that worldwide the total number of road traffic 
  deaths remains unacceptably high at 1.24 million per year.

http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/road_safety_st...

In America [0] (I thought the other stats were American ones too), it actually says in [1] 480000 cigarette deaths which disagrees with the previous stats of 1 million, but a million isn't enough for the world surely?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_i...

[1] http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/healt...

From the context it seems that it's just about cancer cases but it is very vague and could mean anything.

I found numbers for how many cancer deaths in the US are attributable to alcohol [0] and it puts it at 18 200 to 21 300 deaths. For worldwide figures see Table 1 of this study [1] that breaks down alcohol-attributable deaths by category. It lists alcohol-attributable cancer deaths at 487 000 in the year 2004. So it looks like the number isn't misleading, only unclear. Misleading would have been listing the total 2 225 000 alcohol-attributable deaths.

[0] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3673233/

[1] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673609...

If you count colorectal, prostate and breast cancer as lifestyle diseases and that (a meat) diet is related to those - then the numbers are very high.

It's important to understand what "increased risk" means.

From the linked article:

> The IARC’s experts concluded that each 50-gram (1.8-ounce) portion of processed meat eaten daily increased the risk of colorectal cancer by 18%.

From a related article:

> To put this in perspective, the lifetime risk of colon cancer is 5 percent. If you have a hot dog every day, your risk goes to 6 percent.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cancer-sausage-red-meat-world-he...

I'll take those odds.

Good point, many of the health scares we have can be appropriately rationalized by examining it this way.

The impact on socialized medicine is still significant when you consider an additional 1% of colon cancer cases in the population.

Yes, the impact of a 1 percentage point increase is significant, but it's nowhere near the bloodbath that an increase of 18 percentage points would be, which is how I think most people would read "increased risk by 18%."

/me thinks of English breakfast. Sausage and bacon. Combined with ham sandwiches for lunch, and some 200g piece of processed meat with dinner.

Plus pesticide-laden, nutrition-lacking supermarket veggies and, deep fried (>180C) crisps as an evening snack, high fructose corn syrup soft drinks in the daytime. And mouldy coffee and spice mixes. Inflammation galore.

How does it all add up?

The way the 18% figure is used in THIS article is extremely misleading/unhelpful. Thank you for clarifying exactly what they mean by that (the 5-6% thing puts it into perspective).

Also note that an increase from 0.5% to 0.6% would be the same amount of "increased risk." Always look for the base rate.

Meat has been linked with colorectal, prostate and breast cancer not to mention heart disease. So if you take more of an holistic view.. it is quite damaging to yourself.

Be aware that this doesn't count for all meat. Grass-fed red meat is actually healthy, partly because it contains way more Omega-3 compared to Omega-6 and seems to prevent cancer.

You may get more benefits from what the cow ate, but it is still probably a carcinogen. To avoid eating carcinogens, cut out the middleman and eat vegetables and leafy greens yourself.

No it's not. It's the opposite of a carcinogen. It becomes carcinogenic because of the food, grass-fed meat has anti-inflammatory properties, and therefore helps preventing cancer.

Vegetables and leafy greens are not the holy grail, because for this goes almost the same as meat. They can be full with pesticides and be nutrition deficient because of industrial farming.

Whatever you eat, if you want to avoid or lower your risk of getting cancer, eat only organic, non-processed food, ban sugar, and drastically limit the intake of fructose-rich fruits.

And for those who don't care, eat whatever you want, nobody stops you from doing so :)

A more relevant way to look at risk is reduction of life expectancy.

If your adult life expectancy is 78 years old (http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/your-life-expectancy-by-a...) and a hot dog a day gave you a 1% chance of dying at a median age of 52, that would be a life expectancy reduction of 3 months for eating a hot dog a day. If it were a 1% chance of dying at a median age of 69, that would be a 1 month life expectancy reduction.

Is the risk 6% per day? So everyday you eat processed or red meat you have a 6% of getting or further growing cancer in your body?

"No, processed meat has been classified in the same category as causes of cancer such as tobacco smoking and asbestos... but this does NOT mean that they are all equally dangerous. The IARC classifications describe the strength of the scientific evidence about an agent being a cause of cancer, rather than assessing the level of risk."

http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/iarcnews/pdf/Monographs-Q... <- link seems to be down at the moment

"and if you are a hairdresser or do shift work (both class 2A), you should seek a new career."

This line at the end of the article irked me. A friend of mine who was a hair stylist for 20 years is dying of brain cancer and her doctor's are pretty sure her exposure to chemicals on a daily basis had a role in her cancer.

While I understand the comment's attempt at humor, the risk these people have with their exposure to harmful chemicals is very real.

Never though about it that way. There are many other jobs that expose their workers to airborne chemicals. One that comes to mind immediately is anything near urban traffic.

Could society adapt for those workers to start wearing masks or similar protection. Doctors do that all the time, why not hairdressers?

Because doctors don't wear masks to protect themselves. They wear them to protect the patients and avoid spreading diseases.

Because doctors don't wear masks to protect themselves.

Of course they do, because they are also humans vulnerable to diseases. Even more so because they are exposed daily and are usually not the ones introducing diseases into the environment. The masks protect both the patient and the doctor. Mask can also protect doctors from chemicals they might be routinely exposed to.

In any case, they wear masks. Your comment is a red herring. The important part is the social stigma of (not) wearing masks and how to prevent it.

  a member of the Meat Advisory Panel... said "“The top priorities 
  for cancer prevention remain smoking cessation, maintenance of 
  normal body weight and avoidance of high alcohol intakes.”"

  emeritus fellow at the Institute of Food Research, also said the 
  effect was small.

  The North American Meat Institute said defining red meat as a cancer 
  hazard defied common sense.

Due to economies of McDonald's, Burger King et al, there appears to be an intense lobbying group

which would go against any attempt to bring forth discussion on this topic.

I won't be surprised if a decade or two from now we see the issue in the same light as Lead

poisoning primarily due to someone's[1] fight against the status quo.

On a related topic, there is an interesting documentary Cowspiracy [0] (available on Netflix)

which talks about the carbon footprint caused by the animal husbandry. Although it's feature

length, I think the first two acts are compelling.

[0] http://www.cowspiracy.com/

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clair_Cameron_Patterson

Edit: Flow.

"McDonald's, Burger King et al" aren't really affected by this. This is about smoked, salted or otherwise preserved meats. "Processed" doesn't covered mincing/grinding. They may be covered by the weaker claims about red meat in general.

I don't think they would make that distinction and let it by. They wouldn't let any kind of meat be cast in bad light as it would affect them by association.

Burgers count towards processed meats. Especially when it comes ready made from a factory for the staff in the restaurant to heat up.

Cowspiracy and Earthlings are documentaries that most people prefer to ignore. Hopefully, now that DiCaprio is behind Cowspiracy, and got it into Netflix, it will be noticed by a wider audience.

I doubt it will be very popular here though, given the strong cognitive bias I noticed in HN when the subject is diet.

I watched Cowspiracy a while ago. While many of its points are valid (as far as I can tell), I was personally distracted by the pseudo-conspiratorial subnarrative regarding the NGOs' focus on easier goals.

I felt the same about the storytelling in Cowspiracy as I did about many of Michael Moore's films: the "personal struggle"-style and an indignant narrator detracts from the main points, which could instead be more fleshed out in detail.

BUT: People don't ignore the points these two documentaries bring up because they haven't heard them; they do it because they are able to (and it's very easy and convenient to do so at present).

PS. Diet is one of several subjects here on HN (and elsewhere) that tend to be fraught with anecdotes and fads.

Ok, so "processed" meats are bad... but what's the "processing" that makes them bad?

It's from nitrate curing. Ham, bacon, mamy sausages, and most lunch meats go through this process. Sometimes the chemical is added directly via saltpeter, and sometimes indirectly via stuff like celery juice.

From the statement in Lancet Oncology, "Carcinogenicity of consumption of red and processed meat":

"Processed meat refers to meat that has been transformed through salting, curing, fermentation, smoking, or other processes to enhance flavour or improve preservation"

Basically: Don't eat anything because it will give you cancer. I've been living by that rule for about 15 minutes now, but I'm starting to get hungry.

I keep seeing this ridiculous (if jokey) strawman, but it makes no sense. Processed meat has been a known risk for a long time.

Need a list? http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-eating-p...

I agree. It's a legitimate concern though. People are bombarded with what is healthy or not. With fad diets and such. Who do you believe?

ED: oops... I should learn to read good. It says _avoid_ processed meats. I think it would be clearer to leave stuff off the plate which we are supposed to leave off our plate.

> ps. Lol. That page lists processed meats.

Yes, as a thing to avoid:

Limit red meat, and avoid processed meats such as bacon and sausage.

Check again. It says "avoid processed meats"

No, basically, that is not what the article (or WHO) says.

I hear this all the time whenever I say anything about anything contributing to cancer. People use the excuse "Everything gives you cancer, so who cares?" No, not everything gives you cancer. Only things that give you cancer, give you cancer. Lots of foods have anti-cancer properties. Basically, the more natural the food is, the more likely it will be to prevent or even treat cancer. Now when I say treat cancer, I am not saying it is guaranteed to get rid of all your cancer, or you should not seek help from a trusted smart cancer fighting person (notice I did not say doctor or oncologist?). Check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxWRxtS_cGI. Basically if you eat vegetables and fruit, these are anti-cancer. But if you already have cancer, you have to be careful with fruit because of the sugar. But vegetables are good. However, even with fruits and vegetables, the more natural their state the better. If you juice them instead of blending the whole thing, you lose a lot of the nutrition. You are no longer eating it in the original state it was intended to be consumed. They were designed to be a complete package, the nutrients complement each other and enable your body to deal with and use the other things in the food. If they were grown with pesticides or herbicides, these can contribute to cancer. If the ground they are grown in is nutritionally depleted, the food will be also. If the ground or water used is polluted, the food will be also. The best thing is to buy a water distiller, to clean your own water. Then grow your own fruits and vegetables using that water and using high quality, clean, plant superfood. From http://www.foodrising.org/, you can even purchase a very low maintenance, small hydroponic system that allows you to easily grow very nutritious, better than organic fruits and vegetables.

http://extoxnet.orst.edu/faqs/natural/natcarc.htm

Natural = less carcinogenic is not always true. E.g. peanuts with fungicide are way less likely to give you cancer than peanuts in their natural state. Also, saparilla has almost been completely removed from the diet due to perceived cancer risk.

It is true that natural is not always less carcinogenic, but it is one of the simplest and most effective reasoning points. In fact this way of reasoning is so effective, that I am already pretty sure you are wrong about the peanut thing, or at least oversimplifying it in a misleading way, despite the fact that I have never even heard of this before and have done no research at all. I would be interested to see what evidence there is that I am wrong about peanuts. It is also good to reason about whether something was intended for human consumption. Marijuana may be "natural", but I don't think we are intended to eat it for food. If you think a certain food was intended to be eaten it it's original raw state, then reasoning about different ways it can be changed away from that state will help you. The way we grow, process, cook, and eat food is getting farther and farther away from the natural state it started with.

The problem with peanuts is aflatoxin. It's a really, really bad contaminant. If human livers weren't so resilient, ingesting this toxin would almost guarantee liver cancer. Most commercial peanuts have either been rigorously inspected or doused in fungicide.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/568443/fda-warns-public-on-pean...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aflatoxin

“Red and processed meat are among 940 agents reviewed by the IARC and found to pose some level of theoretical ‘hazard’. Only one substance, a chemical in yoga pants, has been declared by the IARC not to cause cancer.

Smart people should take findings like these with a grain of salt, having a good idea of what risk factors are.

It is basically impossible to prevent with 100% certainty the occurrence of a illness like cancer, since it depends on factors outside our control.

It is possible to lower the likelihood of it by following a reasonably healthy lifestyle, which is a factor under our control.

Anyone have a good source for articles that eschew the political commentary in favor of just presenting the study findings in a concise summary?

Does anyone actually care that the global lobbyists for meat don't agree that meat is a carcinogen (or that any lobbyists against meat would care that it is)?

This is the plight of today's journalism. Students are taught to find both sides of the issue and treat them equally, despite the fact that one side has a clear conflict of interest.

Or that lip service is paid to conflicting points of view (even if one side is nonsensical) in order to create a sense of false equivalence and therefore controversy.

All sides in such arguments usually have a conflict of interest. The meat lobby is after money. The "regulate everything" crowd is after power.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

-- C.S. Lewis

Just replace "meat" with "________" and you can supplant an entire shelf of political science tomes with a clear and concise summary of the 21st century political universe.

What Jay Rosen of the NYU journalism school has called "The view from nowhere." (http://pressthink.org/2010/11/the-view-from-nowhere-question...)

Not an article, but here's the paper the WHO cites to make the "16% increased risk per 100g red/processed meat" claim. It's citation 12 on the WHO paper: http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info%3...

But what specifically is it about processed meat that makes it more of a risk than fresh cuts of meat?

The nitrates used to preserve the meat. Although, your risk is elevated only a tiny fraction compared to say, smoking cigarettes.

But surely not all processed meat uses nitrates?

Correct, but most of them do use it as a preservative. I agree the article should address this instead of just saying processed meats are bad. Also, high quality vitamin C can block the nitrosamine formation if you consume it with your processed meat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxWRxtS_cGI

http://store.naturalnews.com/NanoNutra-Liposomal-Vitamin-C-1...

http://store.naturalnews.com/Optimal-Liposomal-Vitamin-C--5-...

This might not necessarily refute your argument, but I wouldn't rely on Natural News as a source. They're a known source of pseudoscientific drivel.

I don't know of any modern source of health information that I trust completely. That goes for the articles in Natural News and even the things Mike Adams himself publishes. I will admit that it is not uncommon for his reasoning to be biased and one-dimensional. However, I think overall he is really knowledgeable about health and is one of the best sources to learn from. He seems to be really trying to find out the truth about health, and I trust his opinions more than most others. Go back and listen to his earliest radio show episodes. Then look at some of the recent stuff he has done with doing his own independent scientific testing. He is a great source of information about health, but definitely question the reasoning of his arguments and do other research.

Nope. The nitrates themselves aren't the issue.

It's the cooking that's the issue because the nitrates convert to nitrosomenes under high heat.

If nitrates were the issue, then we should stop eating celery because that's where the nitrates in processed meats come from, celery juice.

What about cooked celery? Celery, onions, and garlic is pretty much the base of any vegetable mix for a meal I make.

I'm pretty sure the concentration of nitrates is way smaller in a raw celery (as in taken from your garden) than what they actually put on meat.

Many (most?) supermarket brand bacon (and many other cured meats) are cured in celery juice. So I'm not so sure that's true.

I feel like this would be much more informative if they were more specific then.

It's fairly easy to avoid pink-salt. Hebrew National hot dogs don't have it. "Uncured" bacon doesn't have it.

Problem solved without much compromise (IMO all-beef, nitrate/nitrite free hot dogs taste much better Oscar Mayer or Ballpark anyways but I love my high(er) quality meat-in-tube-form). Does celery seed fall under this?

BTW, "traditionally" cured bacon tastes better than "uncured" IMO, but it's pretty much impossible to find IME outside of boutique butchers. The "uncured" stuff is pretty easy to find these days. A few years ago it was hit & miss but now even the Fiesta (a lower-income anglophied Supermercado) around the corner carries it. I guess there's just a lot of economic incentive to use the pink-salt shortcut.

"Nitrate-free" means cured with celery salt which is still a nitrate, just not a bad "chemical one".

The article mentions bacon but doesn't differentiate between cured and uncured varieties. I was under the impression that uncured bacon avoided some of these issues mentioned in the article.

Edit: Assuming you don't have any issues with animal fats and regular salt (I don't).

Industrial farms feed their animals soy and corn, which is stored and therefore contains molds, including Ochratoxin A.

'Uncured' bacon is usually treated with celery salt and a bacteria culture. The bacteria transform the nitrates from celery salt into nitrites, and end up containing up to twice the amount of nitrites than their cured counterpart.

Obligatory links:

http://www.foodsafetywatch.org/factsheets/ochratoxins/

http://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/soy-alert/save-you...

All I want is a quick summary of the data (and methodology) the people mentioned are using to come to their conclusions.

It is extremely odd that this article has a burger at the top of it. As far as I know burger patties aren't normally processed, someone correct me if I am wrong?

A lot of people find it surprising that aside from the veggies the patty is the next healthiest part of a burger. It is the bun and sauce which will kill you (both have a lot of sugar/complex carbs), and then maybe the cheese in third worst.

Just for an example, a Big Mac has three layers of bun (2x patties), while a McDouble has only two layers of bun (2x patties also). The McDouble has 7g of sugar, while the Big mac has 9g of sugar. Now, yes, the sauce will account for some of the delta here, but my point is those buns are extremely unhealthy.

As a strange result, it is often healthier to get smaller but stacked patties rather than a single patty that is larger since the buns, sauce, and cheese will be smaller also. That's why if you look at the Quarter Pounder (1x patty) at McDonald's it is much more unhealthy than the McDouble (more so than you'd expect), the McDouble (2x patties) is 7g of sugar, the single layer Quarter Pounder is 10g(!) of sugar.

The same site in the "Related Content" section show articles saying processed meats are bad in 2009, 2010, 2011 as well.

Then another related article says increase of eating fruits and vegetables does not significantly help reduce risk of cancer either.

No meat. No fruits. No vegetables. Good thing the air we breath and water we drink is clean and doesn't cause ... hmm, nevermind. We're all screwed.

You realize there are meats that aren't processed? Fish, poultry and such are healthy and recommended.

Not sure how "fruits and vegetables does not significantly help reduce risk of cancer" is relevant. Do you only eat things if they reduce the risk of cancer?

Vegetables are healthy and will help you live longer (fruits are also good but are a bit high in sugar if you consume a lot).

I merely pointed out the same site's "related content" area had a few more articles on same subject for a few years and then one about vegetables not reducing risk was "funny".

It may have been intended as a dark joke. We're all screwed. Har har har.

I do realize there are meats that aren't processed.

I do realize that fruits and vegetables are good for you.

How did you not .. I don't know .. get it? Instead of picking it a part literally?

What about smoked fish?

I wonder where roasted marshmallows rank?

Well, apparently wood fires aren't great for you, so unless you're roasting it over a gas flame, probably fairly high: http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-fireplace-delusion

I remember when that article first came out. As I note elsewhere, the fundamental flaw in his logic is thinking, 'if something is worse than tobacco smoke, then it must be banned!' My own thought is, 'if tobacco smoke is less bad than wood smoke, then it must not be banned!'

A world without wood smoke would be a poorer, sadder, less pleasant-smelling world. Yes, it's a pollutant. Yes, it's carcinogenic. But it's one of the things which makes life worth living.

> A world without wood smoke would be a poorer, sadder, less pleasant-smelling world.

It would also be a world without trees, because that's the only way to avoid ever breathing wood smoke. Forest fires are a natural phenomenon and there is no known way of entirely preventing them.

Considering how most of the people I know like to consume them, probably around the same ranking as taking charcoal briquettes internally.

Dr Karl (hugely respected media personality scientist guy from Australia) likes to point out that candles are bad for your lungs, but on the other hand they can be relaxing and peaceful so it's kinda six of one, half dozen of the other.

And as he also is fond of saying: "everything is a poison... what matters is the dose."

And wood smoke is more carcinogenic than tobacco smoke.

So what? I don't want to live in a world without bacon, sausages, roast beef, pipes and cigars!

The fundamental fallacy is the idea that tobacco is so dangerous that it, and anything comparably dangerous, must be banned. Tobacco's dangerous. Cigarettes are a really bad idea. Eating meat for breakfast, lunch and dinner is a pretty bad idea. Don't do that so much.

But you, I and everyone else on earth will die sometime, of something: whether it's cancer, congestive heart failure or something else entirely, we all die. The question is, will we live before we die?

I wouldn't advocate for abstinence over education, and I usually feel like our understanding of human health and nutrition is comparable in sophistication to alchemy; but to add some nuance to the counterargument to what you said, I'll suggest that whether we will live before we die is only one of the important questions, that (a) how long we'll live, and (b) the total number of happy, easy, healthy years we'll have before we die, are also important questions. Until the science is more reliable, moderation seems like the safe bet.

> The fundamental fallacy is the idea that tobacco is so dangerous that it, and anything comparably dangerous, must be banned.

Please name a country where selling or buying cigarettes is not legal.

> But you, I and everyone else on earth will die sometime, of something: whether it's cancer, congestive heart failure or something else entirely, we all die.

Strawman. By that logic we would not use safety belts or cars.

>Please name a country where selling or buying cigarettes is not legal.

There ya go[1]. It would have taken you 5 seconds to google this. The Country is Bhutan.

https://www.google.com/search?q=country+cigarettes+illegal&o...

> Strawman. By that logic we would not use safety belts or cars.

No, it's really not. Are you trying to say that we won't all die at some point?

That's also the argument a lot of people give for having dangerous hobbies, so it's not a strawman in the least.

Really, we shouldn't use cars nearly so much as we do. But if we must, then the very modest inconvenience of having to wear a seatbelt is well worth the improvement in outcome should a crash occur.

That said, there's still plenty of controversy about all the laws around graduated carseats for children—that the carseat industry seems much more interested in emotional appeals than hard data is an obvious red flag.

"The fundamental fallacy is the idea that tobacco is so dangerous that it, and anything comparably dangerous, must be banned."

And yet they never seem to apply this idea to "governments with too much power", despite said institutions being responsible for hundreds of millions of deaths.

I always thought that raw tobacco while not good for you, is not nearly as bad as cigarettes. It's all the other crap cigarette companies put in there that really makes it bad for you.

So if you're going to smoke, make sure it's cuban cigars all the way ;)

That and you don't inhale cigar/pipe tobacco plus for whatever reason they don't appear to be addictive in the same way cigarettes are. In an ideal world I wish all tobacco wasn't lumped together with cigarettes because while I'm sure smoking a pipe/cigar has its risks my impression is those risks are no where as bad as with cigarettes. Unfortunately I've never been able to find any real studies on cigars/pipes in isolation.

Less lung cancer, more mouth and esophogeal cancer. You have to adjust for the fact that people who smoke pipes and cigars smoke much less overall, and then also for the fact that cigarettes almost always have filters.

It's not hard to find studies with good data; e.g., http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/92/4/333.full. Note that the NIH refuses to answer this question (viz. http://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/to...) because they have an absolutist agenda that's not served by talking about differential risks. But the data's out there and you can readily determine the specific risks for yourself. Whether you think it's "much better" than cigarettes is up to you. The data's pretty compelling, though; I wouldn't smoke anything on a regular or frequent basis.

Thanks for the link.

> The data's pretty compelling, though; I wouldn't smoke anything on a regular or frequent basis.

And I feel like this is the key for many of the these health issues. Habitual <insert bad thing here> is really the problem.

Regarding that part of "everyone else on earth will die sometime, of something", is there an ideal death graph that we aim to? I mean, do we know were are we trying to go?.

Just a curiosity, but it will be interesting if somebody is modeling such an "ideal death statistics" (like 0 car accidents, 0 cancer, 0 murders, 80% age related heart failure, etc...).

Ideal to whom? The state may or may not have its own paternalistic notions about how people ought to die, but so does each individual. Your ideal death is the one you'd prefer; mine is the one I'd prefer.

Side note, ever seen anyone dying of heart failure? Not a way I'd want to go.

I guess this is important since we might start seeing class action law suits citing processed meats as a cause of cancer? The question is can you tell that the type of cancer was causing by the consumption of processed meat? When tobacco or asbestos is the cause, it seems to be fairly easy to tell what was the cause of cancer. Will we see warning labels pop up on our meat products?

This confirms the findings described in the book "The China Study". It describes a massive long term survey done in china. Animal proteins is harming.

The China Study has been very thoroughly debunked. I think this article is probably the most highly thought of http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/07/07/the-china-study-fact-or-fal...

It seems Denise Minger has changed her mind: http://rawfoodsos.com/2015/10/06/in-defense-of-low-fat-a-cal...

Up to a point: "Though in case you’re wondering, I stand by my criticisms of the China Study and Campbell’s rat studies. Nothing in this post supports the idea that animal protein is uniquely harmful, and acknowledging when some parts of the plant-based movement are legit doesn’t give a free pass to the ones that aren’t!"

Horribly flawed at best, and "more a work of fiction than a nutritional holy grail".

http://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/abcs-of-nutrition/...

In other news: reading books causes rectal cancer too. All tested groups that got cancer were reading books at least 1 cubic centimeter in volume per week

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