DNA damage caused by diets rich in red meat found in colorectal cancer patients | Hacker News Reader

DNA damage caused by diets rich in red meat found in colorectal cancer patients

medlifestyle.news

38 pointsintellaughs23 comments

Another study where they don't differentiate between fast-food beef, cafo vs. grass-fed, processed with nitrates/nitrites vs. non-processed, etc. And only one year of dietary surveys, for a disease that takes many years to develop?

>The major message, according to Giannakis, is not that people should completely avoid red meat: “My recommendation would be that moderation and a balanced diet is key.” Only patients who consumed more than 150 grams (five ounces) of food per day, about two or more meals, had high levels of tumor alkylation damage.

So red meat is basically fine to eat. Just don't eat it twice a day every day? 150g is a good sized steak.

Maybe American portion sizes are bigger, but 150g (5.5 oz) is pretty small for a steak, both in a restaurant and a supermarket.

6oz or 9oz filet mignon is standard size in the US. And it's not something you would eat every day.

14/16oz would be for ribeye or strip. That's quite a chunk of meat, and most people would not be able to finish it.

150g steak is a pretty common size in European restaurants

Going vegan is the only proven method (with regards to consumption) to reduce your risk of cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. If you care about longevity and consume large amounts of meat you’re doing the equivalent of smoking cigarettes everyday.

P.s. take vitamin B12 if you do go vegan.

Everything I’ve ever done

Everything I ever do

Every place I’ve ever been

Everywhere I’m going to

It’s a sin.

(song by Pet Shop Boys, or what every health article tells me)

Let's just yolo and enjoy the food of this bountiful earth.

I try to avoid / limit grilled and smoked food. It seems clear to me that putting charred food and food specifically infused with smoke would be bad for you, just as smoking is bad for you. Don’t need science to tell me.

Smoking is bad for you because it deposits tar and other toxic substances in your lungs. As far as I'm aware, comparing that to smoked meat is apples to oranges.

If smoke is bad for your lungs, then putting meat into a smoke house for a long time, infusing all of the food with smoke, and having that carcinogen-infused product pass through your entire digestive system seems… also risky. Just logic to me.

If water is bad for your lungs, then surely having liters of water pass through your entire digestive system seems...also risky. Just logic to me.

Are you arguing that smoke is harmless? I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. No one would cook meat with car exhaust and expect it to be safe. Burning charcoal or wood to cook meat using pure smoke cannot possibly be harmless.

No, they are arguing with the heuristic 'if it's bad to inhale, it's probably bad to ingest.' They provided examples in which this wasn't the case.

No one is saying smoke inhalation is harmless. But to conclude it shouldn't be ingested based on this fact alone is dubious.

Put it this way - smoke is clearly bad for you and proven to cause cancer. I believe what I eat is absorbed by my body and can affect it, like medicine affects my body when absorbed. Therefore I think it’s fairly likely that eating a lot of food infused with smoke and carcinogens is a strong risk. It would be quite odd if it turned out smoke-food had absolutely 0% effect on your body, and especially making it a routine piece of food you eat would be worse than a “once in a while” thing.

So that’s my point - if you think smoke is bad for your lungs, it’s probably bad for your colon too!

Combustion creates all sorts of carcinogens. Even wood.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...

Yep. Typical arguments based on intentional literal misinterpretation.

Nope, otherwise you’d get asthma from eating bread, since inhaled flour can irritate alveoli, and so therefore consumed flour can, too.

(To head off the usual argument about allergies, you can replace flour in the above statement with any neutral powder, such as cornstarch or potato starch or baking soda or sugar or salt.)

It’s valid to consider systemic toxins, but if this was a systemic toxin issue, it wouldn’t only be their colon that’s affected, it would also be affecting their lungs, even if they only consumed it.

Much of the harm to lungs from smoke is from the particulates. That won't be quite the same issue for things you eat.

And then a bunch of the compounds present in the smoke, that would get absorbed in the lungs, are not going to concentrate in the meat (anything with a low vapor pressure will mostly be driven off and exhausted out of the grill/smoker/etc).

You can get mouth cancer from tobacco, as well as many other cancers. Lungs are just one.

You are not wrong. Basically everything in moderation.

I think you're getting downvoted because people think you are saying smoking == eating smoked food. I think you're saying smoking = bad, smoked food = bad.

It's true that burnt food is a carcinogen and you shouldn't go out of your way to eat burnt food.

I also consider charred meat to be a cancer risk. This is one of the reasons I dont order steak well done.

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