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Comment by Varqu | Hacker News Reader

Any health-related downsides?

If the diet is high in (processed) red meat: higher cancer risk. If the diet is (too) high in saturated fat, increased cardio vascular risk.

> If the diet is (too) high in saturated fat, increased cardio vascular risk.

You may want to take a look at this meta-study [0].

> “A meta-analysis of prospective epidemiologic studies showed that there is no significant evidence for concluding that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of CHD or CVD.”

[0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20071648/

The authors of that meta-analysis adjusted for serum cholesterol, which defeats the entire point. Saturated fat intake above a certain threshold is associated with CVD because it causes an uptake in serum cholesterol, eventually leading to atherosclerosis.

Saying saturated fat intake doesn't correlate with CVD when ignoring serum cholesterol is entirely uninteresting, and not what anyone's claiming.

See also this[0] comment on that flawed meta-analysis.

[0] https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/92/2/458/4597393

Meta-analyses are not a panacea, that's clear. As I suspect you know well, two further meta-analysis came to the same conclusion: Chowdhury 2014 [0], De Souza 2015 [1]. More recently, Kang in 2018 [2] and Zhu in 2019 are also stating that they fail to find evidence of a clear association between SFA consumption and risk of CVD.

Obviously, as science is what it is (and that's a good thing), those study are debatable and do have weak spots.

[0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24723079/ [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26268692/ [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31791641/ [3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30954077/

Why are you relying on meta-analysis of observational studies when we have meta-analysis of RCT's?

I’m all ear actually, if you could kindly point me to the relevant material.

https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jo...

It may result in Gout. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/4755-gout

Gout mainly becomes an issue when high consumption of animal products is combined with high consumption of sugar (especially fructose).

https://peterattiamd.com/rickjohnson/

Not enough fibre.

If you do keto, you are allowed to eat many vegetables that are rich in fibre. But if you follow a meat-only diet will make it really difficult to poop. I wonder how carnivorous animals do it. Are they constipated all the time?

I believe their stomach acids are far stronger, their bowels are a faster path to exit, and they often eat adjuncts which I assume help move things along.

Here’s a brief explanation from a member of Cornell faculty: http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2004-10/1096814276.Zo.r...

> But if you follow a meat-only diet will make it really difficult to poop. I wonder how carnivorous animals do it. Are they constipated all the time?

Easiest poop was when I was carnivore(you poop very little amount). Being constipated means you didn't get enough fat. Having diarrhea means you got too much fat that your body couldn't absorb fast enough.

At start of carnivore you'll probably have diarrhea since your body/colon isn't yet used to so much fat/meat. But then you get get used to it (1-4 week).

That's true. When I've had a lot of meat, I take a tablespoon of psyllium husk in a cup of water.

Red meat consumption has been linked to colon cancers in some studies. I guess you could always limit yourself to chicken etc.

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