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Comment by boothead | Hacker News Reader

Again with the red meat?! Is there actually a real study that has established a causal relationship between eating meat and living shorter?

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Red meat is definitely correlated with shorter lifespans, see e.g. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2803089/. Causes appear to include increased risk of certain types of cancer and cardiovascular disease.

The causal links are obviously much harder to tease out, but the correlation between eating red meat and a shorter lifespan is strong enough that it shouldn't be a controversial statement.

I'm not a big fan of the overweight argument either. If I can find it, I read an article just the other day[1] that said there was no expectation of untimely death from being in a BMI that is considered 'overweight'. So there is no lost time there. And a couple drinks a night isn't going to cost you any time either.

[1] http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-overweight-surviv...

BMI is an absolute crap metric. It's vaguely useful for populations (and even there serious objections have been raised). It's utterly inappropriate for individuals, particularly when ready alternatives exist (waist size, for example, is a more robust predictor, despite its own vagaries).

For individuals, BMI suffers in that it generally understates obesity in unfit, but "BMI-compliant" individuals, while overstating obesity in fit, BMI-noncompliant individuals. Which means that interventions are not indicated for those who would benefit and are indicated for those who would not.

Generally, there's also the issue that there are large natural variations in healthy human weights, and no single target or designator will be appropriate for all. Fitness is multidimensional, and any attempt to reduce it to a single metric will likely fail.

My lay recollection is that slightly higher-than-prescribed BMI is positively associated with greater life expectancy. Rationales vary, but among them, sick or ill individuals typically have lower-than-average bodyweights (skewing life expectancy down for low BMI scores), and athletes typically have elevated BMIs. Studies of Scandinavian Olympic athletes shows a pronounced lifetime mortality benefit to having competed in games (which tends to balance out the notoriously poor life expectancies of US professional athletes, particularly football, many associated with cumulative injuries sustained).

In regards to drinks, it's probably indirect. E.g., the sort of person who has several drinks every night is probably the sort of person to have alcohol abuse issues at some point in their life. Alternatively, the data was averaged, and you are seeing the negative impact of binge drinking on weekends.

It's also odd they they didn't seem to consider sugar intake. Unless perhaps I missed it....?

I would like to see a study that controls for meat production methods, particularly prophylactic antibiotic and hormone treated CAFO raised beef and pork, vs. grass-fed / free range animals raised without antibiotics and hormones, under organic certification.

One set of studies specifically noted precursors of colon cancer conditions immediately following ingestion of red meat, with seems like a bad thing.

That said, I'm cautious but not convinced by these studies. I eat beef, though not daily.

I used to be vegetarian and am eating modified paleo which means red meat and eggs (among other things, including lots of veggies, very little sugar and alcohol, fish, etc). Long-term health consequences worry me a bit but it seems like there is so much that we really don't understand about diet.

It's hard to defeat dogma.

Those who aren't willing to suspend disbelief and take on a reasonably skeptical mindset on these matters will get what they deserve.

Believe the stuff is good? Believe it's bad? Either way, best of luck to ya. ;)

I know at least of The China Study supporting the claim:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Study_(book)

Read the criticisms and controversies section of the wikipedia article, it's a widely criticised study (perhaps not as much as Ancel Keys' study but close)

Also see here for a very thorough refutation: http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/08/03/the-china-study-a-formal-an...

You asked for a study. I gave you one. I guess that any study worth its time has criticisms and some that don't. Evolution is also criticized. I'm not comparing or equating them, just reminding you a criticism doesn't mean something is not right. Now I did read that wiki section and it is pretty short for such a "controversial" study.

First let me just say that my opinion is that I don't think there is anyone on this earth who knows for sure exactly what red meat does to humans and whether it is good or bad. I choose to believe the study for now.

Now I can start rationalizing why, and reputing Denise's reputings. Unfortunately I don't have time for this. I wish I could spend all my time talking about red meat (I don't) but I can't.

As a side note/joke - Denise is 25. I'm 25. I don't recommend anyone take any health advice from 25 year olds :)

The truth about Ancel Keys can be seen in the following video.

Primitive Nutrition 36: The Infamous Ancel Keys? Part I http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDwjkv1FW5g

Also, Denise Minger's "refutation" is hardly to be trusted. She even plagiarized this man's work on Ancel Keys. http://www.plantpositive.com/blog/2012/3/21/a-reply-to-denis...

The China study has been debunked, on numerous occasions.

My personal favorite:

http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/07/07/the-china-study-fact-or-fal...

You may want to read this before trusting Denise Minger's response to the China study. http://www.plantpositive.com/blog/2012/3/21/a-reply-to-denis...

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