Processed meats as bad as cigarettes: bad reporting on good science | Hacker News Reader

Processed meats as bad as cigarettes: bad reporting on good science

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131 pointszsupalla45 comments

My first thought was that the report is only talking about rectal and colon cancers, so yes diet might affect them as much as (or even more than) smoking.

But that really isn't even close to to being a good comparison when discussing overall effect of risk factors: talking about the effect of smoking while only counting damage to the bottom end of the digestive system is like talking about the effect of drink driving while only counting uni-cyclists.

So the reporting is massively misleading, the inference that the risks caused by smoking and those caused by eating processed meats are even of the same order of magnitude is simply wrong. I shall have to read the actual report to get any real meaning from it.

Exactly! I'm always disappointed by reporting on scientific research; reading the research helps, but how many people are going to do that? A lot of people will probably change their diets based on this research, assuming that eating meat is as bad as smoking.

No, the article draws an analogy between the impact of meats on colon cancer and the impacts of cigarettes on lung cancer. They are not talking about the impact of smoking on colon cancer.

From what I've read on /r/science eating 100g of the specified meats daily increases your risk of certain cancers by ~20%.

Compare with smoking, which increases the risk of lung cancer by 1,000-1,500%

Here are some actual studies (impact factor between 7.5 to 17) showing the connection between meat and cancer. This was probably part of the 800 studies that the WHO used to make its decision.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24606898

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21422422

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2121650/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23169929

http://share.kaiserpermanente.org/article/high-fat-dairy-pro...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22342103

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14585259

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19279082

Sorry, guys, but you are all wrong. WHO is a huge and difficult body to get agreements from. After years and 800 studies, they decided today to label processed meats as carcinogens.

Btw, 15% of lifelong smokers get lung cancer whereas 15-19% of meat-eaters get some sort of cancer (mainly, colorectal, prostate and breast).

I can appreciate that this is a surprise, but the data has been there for more than a decade.

You haven't established that cancer in meat eaters is largely caused by eating meat, whereas it is quite clear that overall cancer rate drastically increases in smokers.

In fact, while vegetarian diets do reduce the risk of cancer, the difference is by comparison modest - the overall risk of cancer in vegetarians is ~10% lower.

That isn't true. There are causal links between meat and cancer. You have: IGF1, saturated fat, sulphar-based animo acids like methionine, mycobacterial load, oxidative stress, purification in the intestine and more recently, that nuXX sugar found in protein.

Did you read my comment?

I didn't deny causal links between meat and cancer. I denied that the causal links between meat and cancer caused anything close to as much additional total cancer risk as smoking does. That's a viewpoint that is supported by any credible source you care to name.

Vegetarians still consume proteins from animals like casein and cholesterol from eggs. There have been a lot of studies connecting casein to cancer as well (when protein intake is over 7% from calories).

This is a perfect example of confusing correlation with causation.

"This is a perfect example of confusing correlation with causation." You are confusing two different fields of science. This isn't physics where an action causes a reaction. This is biology and the human body is a massive ecosystem. The 800 studies that "eventually" reached the WHO is the best way to determine a connection between two things. This is decades of research and maybe around 1million human subjects that were studied in total.

The WHO report is very clear: red meat and processed meat cause an increase in risk of some cancer. And they're very clear that it's causal, not just correlation. And they're clear that the risk is increased by 15-20%. But that increase is on a very low risk.

Also worth noting: The same "known carcinogens" list also includes birth control pills and sunlight.

Not all carcinogens should be avoided.

If I'm not mistaken even sunscreen is carcinogenic

Living has a 100% mortality rate.

According to the always wonderful reporting at the Daily Mail, sunscreen is responsible for causing and avoiding cancer :) http://kill-or-cure.herokuapp.com/a-z/s#term262

You are mistaken. Certain kinds of sunscreen used in the past were carcinogenic, they've been banned.

You are right, my information was old

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4-Aminobenzoic_acid

And alcoholic beverages! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IARC_Group_1_carcinoge...

And sure enough, the formally-respectable tabloid known as Ars takes the bait: http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/10/its-official-bacon-ho...

What do you mean by "takes the bait"? The headline is accurate - nothing there about "as bad as cigarettes" or any other hyperbole.

You've misunderstand the submission.

The quality of the evidence is very good - now we are sure that eating red meat and processed meat increases the risk of cancer, although that risk is still very small. We are now as sure of that as we are that smoking causes cancer, although the risks from smoking are very much greater.

The Ars head line is accurate. The second and third paragraphs are clear and easy to understand and accurate.

> Today, in a sizzling announcement, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) officially marked processed meat, such as bacon, hot dogs, and sausages, as “carcinogenic to humans,” a “group 1” designation. The agency, an arm of the World Health Organization, also classified red meat, such as beef, pork, and lamb, as “probably carcinogenic to humans,” a “group 2A” grade.

> (The group designations refer to the confidence health experts have in the link between the meats and cancer; it does not refer to the potency of the meats’ cancer-causing abilities.)

I understand now, thank you.

It's a shame you trivialise the risk. :-/

Skin cancer is very common, and kills many people. People absolutely should be careful about the amount of sunlight they expose themselves to.

Sunscreen is also carcinogenic. Vitamin D deficiency is also harmful. And staying indoors with little exercise leads to a whole host of other conditions.

Not all sunscreens are carcinogenic. Just the externally pleasant ones that leach into your skin.

I understand that you find yourself on the side of smokers, trying to justify your habits. But this new report is still very significant to people having long, energetic and less painful lives.

I don't mean to trivialize the risk; merely to point out that there are things which, while carcinogens, should not be avoided absolutely. The key is risk management, not risk avoidance; just as avoiding sunlight entirely would tend to greatly increase the risk of obesity and related metabolic conditions, someone who eats bacon is likely to be at lower risk than someone who eschews bacon but instead eats lots of carbohydrates.

The first line of the Guardian's article is:

"Bacon, ham and sausages rank alongside cigarettes as a major cause of cancer, the World Health Organisation has said, placing cured and processed meats in the same category as asbestos, alcohol, arsenic and tobacco."

Is that correct? If the WHO did indeed put these all into the same category, then I'm not sure this article is at fault. Should the author of this post instead take issue with how the WHO categorized these things?

For processed (cured) meats, they must assuredly mean sodium nitrite (which sodium nitrate turns in to) and/or salt is known carcinogens. In which case, it should be "sodium nitrite known to cause cancer".

Also, people should know that even "no nitrates/nitrites added" doesn't mean devoid of nitrates or nitrites, because most companies add tons of celery salt, and, for the most part, you end up with an equivalent amount of sodium nitrite in your processed/cured meats.

http://ruhlman.com/2011/05/the-no-nitrites-added-hoax/

The term "processed food" seems so overloaded that it's largely pointless.

Nevertheless, this page seems to explain its popular usage well, while adding some much needed sanity:

http://www.nhs.uk/livewell/goodfood/pages/what-are-processed...

"Processed meat was classified as carcinogenic to humans (Group 1), based on sufficient evidence in humans that the consumption of processed meat causes colorectal cancer."

http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/pr/2015/pdfs/pr240_E.pdf

and here you find tobacco:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IARC_Group_1_carcinoge...

So processed meat IS ranking next to tobacco according to IARC.

The groups have nothing to do with "ranking", they're based on the amount of evidence that we have for the link. From the IARC's FAQ:

> The classification indicates the weight of the evidence as to whether an agent is capable of causing cancer (technically called “hazard”), but it does not measure the likelihood that cancer will occur (technically called “risk”) as a result of exposure to the agent.

(Emphasis theirs)

http://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/News/Q&A_ENG.pdf

So this tells us how certain we are that they cause cancer. And we are certain that red meat causes cancer, and we are certain that smoking causes cancer.

This ranking does not tell us how much cancer is caused. We know that there is a low risk of colon cancer, and that eating red meat will increase that risk by about 15 to 20%. This ends up at a very low risk.

Cigarettes massively increase the risk of lung cancer. (And other cancers).

What apparently a lot of people fails to understand is that the IARC list reflects is how sure we are that a substance is carcinogenic, but not how much it raises the risk of cancer.

So we can equally be sure that plutonium and bacon are a risk for health. But we also know that eating plutonium is more dangerous than bacon.

Any thoughts on

http://www.zoeharcombe.com/2015/10/world-health-organisation...

Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10451259.

"The Nitrate and Nitrite Myth: Another Reason Not To Fear Bacon"

http://chriskresser.com/the-nitrate-and-nitrite-myth-another...

Bad reporting but good traffic.

Kinda funny how hard some people try to reject a finding which is as well supported as it is obvious ... red meat is bad. Same logic applies here as with cigarettes - you decide if you want to take the risk.

Beyond your personal consequences - meat and dairy industry is also directly destructive to the environment and society on a global level (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3302820/).

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=site%3Anature.com+%22red+meat%22

That has little to do with the linked article, which is only rejecting the bombastic headlines comparing the two.

Is it really that bombastic? Lot of people are smoking and will readily justify it with anecdotal evidance proving that smoking isn't really that bad at all - "you know there was this 105 year old Japanese guy and they asked him how he got that old and he said he stopped smoking at the age of 99 ..."

Furthermore - people need those "comparisons" - only few will change their behavior based on purely statistical reasoning.

The comparison is inaccurate, though. You're supporting being factually incorrect to scare people?

The WHO report tells us that the quality of the evidence is very good, which is why red meat and processed red meat have this new classification.

It doesn't talk about how strong the cancer-causing effects of red meat and processed meat are. They are nothing like as risky as cigarettes. We know that cigarettes are very harmful.

That's very true. People are very averse to admitting that meat and dairy contribute negatively to their health, despite the many studies that show the contrary.

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