“There is a growing body of evidence about the detrimental health effects of consuming too much red meat and dairy, so this study shouldn’t be taken as an excuse to eat more cheeseburgers and pizza; rather, it indicates that nutrient supplements such as TVA could be used to promote T cell activity.”
I’m also curious about this being a trans fat. I’ve heard public health campaigning that trans fats are unhealthy, but this research highlights one as a potential cancer therapy. It is apparently another case of un-nuanced popular ideas about health and nutrition not being the whole truth.
The problem with many red meat studies that show a negative effect, is typically the meat is eaten in the form of fast food cheeseburgers or in the case of dairy, pizza.
Red meat alone does not cause heart disease. It’s based off the fraudulent study regarding saturated fat and heart disease, which the sugar industry paid for.
More likely, is the breads used in SAD (which have very high amounts of sugar vs other countries’ bread) has a much heavier hand in heart disease.
Further, the science about cholesterol and what markers mean what amount of heart disease risk isn’t even a clear science. LSL vs HDL vs triglycerides. It seems we know triglycerides elevated is not good, but it’s not clear on LDL and HDL alone (there’s also the size of the particle that matters in determining cardiovascular risk)
Show me a study of a population who eats steaks, vegetables, avoids processed foods, and is athletic and I’ll show you a healthy heart.
Big ag and big meat in particular has been playing that game for ages. See [https://time.com/4130043/lobbying-politics-dietary-guideline...] for a recent example. For something older, "The U.S. Department of Agriculture's 1991 withdrawal of its Eating Right Pyramid food guide in response to pressure from meat and dairy producers was only the latest in a long series of industry attempts to influence federal dietary recommendations. " [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8375951/]
You make it sound as though the Lipid Hypothesis has been thoroughly debunked, how many medical bodies agree with this conclusion, though? At the very least, the European Atherosclerosis Society, American College of Cardiology, and Canadian Cardiovascular Society disagree with you.
One could cite a lot of things against the lipid hypothesis and likewise the other way. Maybe just think about this from an armchair standpoint... Before 1900 heart disease was extremely rare. And what were people eating before 1900? A whole lot of beef, bacon, butter, and eggs. Saturated fat consumption per capita was basically unchanged from 1900 to 1950. But heart disease skyrocketed. Look at this data:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FmhBUOpagAA-9Mj?format=png&name=...
Consumption of free sugars, pulverized grains, manufactured oils and cigarette smoking took off like crazy after 1900. Type 2 Diabetes was totaly unchecked and out of control. By 1960 heart disease is the #1 killer and what do they blame... Saturated fat, beef... eggs? Come on... You don't need a million studies to scratch your head a little at the lipid hypothesis.
>Maybe just think about this from an armchair standpoint
Why?
>Before 1900 heart disease was extremely rare. And what were people eating before 1900? A whole lot of beef, bacon, butter, and eggs. Saturated fat consumption per capita was basically unchanged from 1900 to 1950. But heart disease skyrocketed. Look at this data: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FmhBUOpagAA-9Mj?format=png&name=...
Do you think the scientists and doctors that have examined this issue professionally for 8 or more hours per day over decades haven't seen or considered this data?
I am not going to "just think about this from an armchair standpoint" because, quite frankly, that's stupid. I don't know what the confounding variables in the data you show might be. I don't know the nuances and complexities. I would guess you probably don't either.
This is such an ignorant and sad point of view. What are you, some hatchling that can only eat what mama bird has chewed up? At least make an attempt to do some critical thinking.
I’ve done the critical thinking and the conclusion that such critical thinking has lead to is that I will most likely have better outcomes if I follow the advice of people who have looked at these issues 8 hours a day for years on end than if I “do my own research” and listen to coders trying to give advice on best practices in cardiology.
You might have your limitations but that doesn't really go for everyone. Plenty of coders can do survey
research in cardiology better than most cardiologists, just how it goes. Cardiologists know the heart and dealing with patients, survey research they very often don't do so well. You should realize the limitations of experts in their own fields, they are human too, and often very biased since they have to deal with the sociopolitical climate in their fields.
IMO the real mistake is assuming that any survey + observational style study constitutes advice for individuals. The unfortunate truth in coaching is there's so little broad advice that can be given, that is guaranteed to not have a slice of humanity for which it's actually damaging. That is, for the vast majority of the advisable ways of living/eating, there are folks out there whom if they adhered to the advice they'd actually deteriorate. Which is a big part of what medical advisors (doctors, nutritionists, integrative medicine et al) exist, and taking advice from an influencer of 1000s or millions of followers is simply irresponsible.
Rather, one needs to first do the science to understand the mechanisms, and 2nd do the labwork to understand the individual.. Then apply the mechanisms which will bring that individual to better health, and iterate too because often times the advice can either go too far, or not far enough.
Because they are the experts in their field. They are the most qualified to not only read through all of the literature, but actually properly understand it, debate it, and come to a reasonably correct conclusion.
>why are you resistant to the idea they could be wrong?
I'm not resistant to the idea they could be wrong. It's science, the whole thing is built on showing proving previous hypotheses were either wrong or somehow incomplete. However, when it comes to health, I feel I'd be better served by listening to the consensus of various medical bodies than commenters on the Internet, media outlets, or my own ability to digest the scientific literature. In mathematical terms, I think the expected value of my health outcomes where I listen only to the advice of medical bodies is better than the expected value of my health outcomes where I "do my own research," in spite of the fact that medical bodies may be wrong here or there. I'd get it wrong more often.
Parts of the field are in worryingly deep denial about the number and magnitude of confounding variables a moderate level of skeptical empiricism suggests could be present in their foundational research. As, again, in the specific case that user is worried you're glossing over: The lipid hypothesis was probably developed from studies with diets also high in processed foods, simple carbohydrates, added sugar, salt, and vegetable oils, and low in organ meats and heavy-metal-free fish. Don't we all agree these things as a staple in a diet will probably negative health outcomes on their own? How can the field be confident enough to publicly assert a model on that? Have they put the rice-fruit-and-legume diet through as rigorous a comparison to the chicken-veg-and-liver diet as they did to the McDonald's special diet? It'd be nice to develop a culture of a straight answer of "Yes, and here's the confirming metaanalysis [1]" on this question in place of this "mind-your-seniors" browbeating. Isn't that what science is supposed to be about?
You've cited the debunking of a demographer to try to debunk the work of cardiologists. Okay?
>Parts of the field are in worryingly deep denial about the number and magnitude of confounding variables a moderate level of skeptical empiricism suggests could be present in their foundational research. As, again, in the specific case that user is worried you're glossing over: The lipid hypothesis was probably developed from studies with diets also high in processed foods, simple carbohydrates, added sugar, salt, and vegetable oils, and low in organ meats and heavy-metal-free fish. Don't we all agree these things as a staple in a diet will probably negative health outcomes on their own? How can the field be confident enough to publicly assert a model on that? Have they put the rice-fruit-and-legume diet through as rigorous a comparison to the chicken-veg-and-liver diet as they did to the McDonald's special diet?
Once again, I, and probably the vast majority of people on HN, aren't properly educated to have a comprehensive view of the medical literature on the matter and properly digest it all. I'm not going to participate in a debate on the merits of guidelines published and signed by thousands of medical and scientific experts from around the world, to even try and assume I could do so with a couple of hours here and there when they're looking into these issues for 8 hours a day for years on end would be arrogant on my part.
>It'd be nice to develop a culture of a straight answer of "Yes, and here's the confirming metaanalysis [1]" on this question in place of this "mind-your-seniors" browbeating. Isn't that what science is supposed to be about?
If you want to challenge someone who might be able to give you an informed answer, your best bet is to talk to an actual expert on the matter. You can find some people in the articles below.
According to whom are they considered experts? After how the government deals with COVID I don't trust "the medical consensus" which is code for "things I want you, the mainstream to agree with". Why would they be "experts"? What expertise do they have? It's not based on the best credentials, it's a job.
They're nameless government entities. Depending if you feel knowledge always grows you may change your ideas. Waves of ignorance litter the medical field today, as hysteria was accepted as the only disease women could have: the wandering womb theory. Consensus of ignorance is still ignorance.
There's no real evidence that high red meat is bad. There's no evidence that eating more veggies is bad.
That’s the key problem though, in the face of alternative hypothesis they fail to even acknowledge they may be wrong. Coupled with the intense lobbying
>That’s the key problem though, in the face of alternative hypothesis they fail to even acknowledge they may be wrong.
That is not they key problem as you originally laid out. Your original position is that they key problem is they ARE wrong. Further, I don't know that I've ever read any sort of paper or written guidelines that explicitly says "we might be wrong here." Should those all be ignored for that reason? The papers you yourself cited in a comment above don't explicitly say they may be wrong, yet you have no problem taking them as 100% established fact. This seems like a bit of a double standard and sloppy logic.
>Coupled with the intense lobbying
Do you have evidence for corruption in these institutions?
I could imagine this sort of thing having an impact on a scattered group here and there, but these are not static groups. Why would a member who joined 10 years ago would give a shit about doubling down for the sake of the reputation of the same group from 40 years ago?
That's an example of a body of scientists changing its recommendations when there's data available to support it, which is what GP was trying to argue wouldn't happen because it'd make them look bad.
I'm not advocating for any kind of diet, though. I'm advocating for trusting the consensus opinion of multiple independent groups of scientists to determine what the data does and does not say about what's healthy.
There is no consensus. There are different consensuses. That group has a consensus based on false evidence. Nordic countries have another consensus based on real evidence. https://nordstjernan.com/news/food/4668/
> Because they are the experts in their field. They are the most qualified to not only read through all of the literature, but actually properly understand it, debate it…
Ok…point taken
>..and come to a reasonably correct conclusion.
Or more likely…probably will not come to the correct conclusion. Every past “accepted” or “settled” scientific consensus now known to be wrong once had its merits tested from the most qualified to not only read through all of the literature, but actually properly understand it, debate it people?
In the last few years science has received a black eye because the populace was told we should blindly trust experts. We see now that experts are frequently wrong and affected by politics and money. I can weigh their opinion, but blindly trust? Not any more.
>Or more likely…probably will not come to the correct conclusion. Every past “accepted” or “settled” scientific consensus now known to be wrong once had its merits tested from the most qualified to not only read through all of the literature, but actually properly understand it, debate it people?
So what? You're quickly approaching "Science is a liar sometimes" territory. Has scientific consensus been wrong in the past? Yes. So what?
>We see now that experts are frequently wrong and affected by politics and money.
Define "frequently," because I sure as shit haven't seen them be wrong more often than not, and I REALLY haven't seen them be wrong more often than commentators on the internet.
I have noticed that many of those "experts" don't seem to be getting very good results themselves. Weak, slow, overweight, and just visibly unhealthy. I know that doesn't constitute real scientific evidence of anything but it makes me question whether they really know what they're talking about.
As a practical matter most of us would probably do better by ignoring the science and instead mimicking the practices of successful masters athletes. While there is a certain amount of survivorship bias, people who are still achieving sub-elite results into their 60's must be doing something right.
Genes as well as survivorship bias. On a related note, numerous seasoned athletes or fitness enthusiasts seem to "break" very fast as they age. While they probably boast excellent cardiovascular health, if the package includes worn-out joints and persistent issues like back pain opting for moderate physical activity appears to be a wiser choice compared to pushing the limits with sub-elite levels of exertion.
People are too quick to blame "bad genes" for their poor results. In reality this is seldom a major factor and they usually can't point to a specific genetic test result. While genetics might play a role at the elite and professional levels there is no real evidence that it matters for masters athletes. Good habits and training are what count.
There is no evidence that participating in sports wears out joints. Joints evolved to move. The majority of people who need joint surgery lead sedentary lifestyles. Building strong muscles helps to stabilize joints and reduces the risk of injury.
It is interesting that this PR pre-empts the natural takeaway many would have — eating more dairy or red meat — by reductively representing the options as “cheeseburgers” and “pizza.”
Checking out the research paper[1], the competing interests section declares that Chen “has patents pending on TVA and TVA derivatives.”
I don’t think the underlying reasoning is incorrect, but the way it’s presented is interesting.
Technology commercialization by universities is the way any academic research (potentially, eventually) reaches the public, and it's quite normal for the original researchers to be involved in the commercialization venture, as advisers, or as CEO. They know the topic best.
I agree - in cases like this patents are a large part of the motivation behind studying the thing in question, if they didn't have patents they wouldn't do the research.
It's up to peer review and replication studies to confirm any effects. Even if there weren't any credibility issues with a piece of research this would be true.
I did learn something interesting about red meat travelling to South America. so the story is red meat and cancer, people that consume a lot more red meat tend to have more cancer. Brazil and Argentina are favourite examples. Except no one seems to take an account how they prepare red meat.
A churrasco or asado is a full day event. It starts with wood, and they get a fire going, and this last for hours and is a big social event. In other words hanging around wood smoke, now I can picture something that’s not red meat that could cause cancer in this scenario, but that never seems to bother researchers. They got the result they wanted and publish.
I can buy some of that. Burn pits in active war zones are a known source of cancer, half being in a constant vicinity of something burning and the other half being the properties of the aerosols produced by the thing being burned. That's to say, if the wood is treated it'll be more dangerous than seasoned wood.
When a family member was diagnosed with cancer I was warned heavily about the difference between cooked meat and charred meat. Charring is linked to cancer where cooked meat is a bit more up in the air.
That's not really conclusive about anything as not all studies are done in South America..
Looking into pork for example, it is recommended as an alternative because it seems to have a lower incidence of many cancer types in studies and it's a great meat to smoke.
Teochew people eat a lot of (from my anecdotal experience) and we don't have the same culture of charcoal burning our meat. I wonder whether a similar comparison could work for South East vs other parts of the Chinese diaspora...
I avoid grilled and smoked meat because it seems very obvious to me that infusing meat with carcinogens would be bad for you. I’ve read that colon cancer is elevated in youth and I have a hunch that the widespread grilling and smoking culture has played a part.
There's currently a study underway that took 100 people who have been on a low carb high fat diet for, on average, over 4 years. These people had a large increase in LDL when switching to this diet. All participants had CT Angiograms, CAC scans, and other tests at T-0 and after 1 year. Some in the study had LDL levels seen in Homozygous Familial Hypercholesterolemia (>350mg/dL).
A matched control study with this population and the general population is also underway, with the initial results being presented on Dec 8th at the WCIRDCD Conference.
If LDL is independently causal of atheroscelosis/CHD, it should be seen in this population.
> Show me a study of a population who eats steaks, vegetables, avoids processed foods, and is athletic and I’ll show you a healthy heart.
You're probably right, but only because the actual problem has always been the excess calories.
Excess calories leads to energy poisoning, the cause for diabetes, with high blood glucose and high triglycerides being just energy excess that can't be quickly burned or stored.
Foods are not equal though. That saturated fat more easily leads to atherosclerosis, compared to monounsaturated fat, is a fact. So, if you eat a lot in excess, being selective matters.
Also, lay off the conspiracy theories, it's bad for your health.
When I saw articles/videos on the centenarians in Italy or Costa Rica, I noticed that they don't shy away from dairy products or grains. They usually prepare their own food themselves, and don't eat too much.
You should know that most of the claims of unusual proportions of very long life from these communities turned out to be bunk. Many researchers spent much more effort on present-day cultural and medical study than they did on discerning historical verification, and so got their numbers inflated by retroactively-produced proof of age in communities small and disconnected enough to not make this their priority a whole hundred years ago (Okinawa), or fraudulently-adjusted age in communities with enough lack of national oversight to enable community-wide retirement fraud (Sicily).
The "Blue Zone Diet(s)" is still probably better than the American Big Mac and Sugar Cup diet, but it's unclear if they're actually living longer than people on other potentially wholesome diets.
The Okinawa study had even bigger issues, most notably age misrepresentation linked to the loss of koseki registers during WW2, which were unreliable to begin with and were reconstructed from family testimony after the war. I remember reading that on the top of all the rest, elderly people there tended to make mistakes of a full 12 years when giving their age because they would base themselves on their year sign, which they were more familiar with than the new Western calendar.
> The problem with many red meat studies that show a negative effect, is typically the meat is eaten in the form of fast food cheeseburgers or in the case of dairy, pizza.
Beef is also corn fed and corn finished which changes its nutritional characteristics.
If you want actual grass fed and grass finished beef, that's very rare and more expensive.
I’m always amused on how thats supposed to be the smoking gun, as if some other party that didn't care would ever allocate time and money into the research
no conflict = no interest
if the study is fraudulent due to methods then just stick with that, science is supposed to be reproducible so that nobody has to care about who did the hypothesis and conclusion at all
This is long known to be true, especially for cured meats. Industrial processing requires additives and preservatives that you’ll never use at home or a restaurant.
Yeah my understanding is that the balance of evidence on moderate alcohol consumption works this way as well (though with cancer and heart health reversed).
It was my understanding that many of the studies on moderate alcohol consumption included people in the study who could not drink for medical reasons (or were former alcoholics) which skewed the results for the zero-alcohol groups.
Studies on red wine included people whose only source of fruit was red wine, which similarly skewed the results.
Maybe the problem with cheeseburgers is the bun and sugar more than the meat or cheese itself? I would imagine grass-fed (and finished) beef is better than ultra processed meat – especially if sugar ends up in the finished product!
Broadly speaking, I’d say the evidence decently points to yes most trans polyunsaturated fats are probably harmful. But I definitely agree, that lumping various fatty acids, amino acids and carbohydrates into big groups hides their extreme individual complexity.
One possible exception to the “trans fat bad” thing for example is that when I last looked into it several years ago, Conjugated Linoleic Acid (“CLA”) which can be either cis or trans were generally regarded as probably beneficial.
Though frankly I’ve no idea how that would be. Regular linoleic acid itself is considered harmful (at least in the historically excessive amounts we are currently exposed to). It suppresses mammalian metabolism (being required by hibernators to induce the start of their winter torpor cycling), is very prone to oxidizing and generating free radicals and lipid peroxides which cause havoc in lipoproteins and blast holes in cardiovascular tissue, and even without all that it’s breakdown products tend to increase inflammation, though this can be paradoxically hidden by linoleic acid’s ability to suppress the immune system. But somehow when you conjugate three of the things together and get CLA, it behaves differently and can seemingly scavenge for free radicals.
Unless I'm misremembering a lot of the benefits of CLA did not prove out with subsequent studies and it always came with general health caveats alongside the potential benefits (primarily to visceral abdominal fat, IIRC).
It could also be a category error: Vegetable seed oils seem to correlate strongly with bad health outcomes. Meanwhile, other oils (e.g. olive oil) with similar levels of the same types of fatty acids have better outcomes.
Is it the type of fat, or the process through which it's extracted, that's most important? I don't know if the answer is as clear as we'd like it to be.
Going back to the article: Isn't it possible that the trans fat in question is actually toxic like other trans fats, but in a way that's narrowly beneficial in this circumstance?
I skimmed your video and it's the same old low-carb narratives with very little evidence cited which should always be a red flag. People who can't point to our best metaanalyses or human health outcome research on something to back their point will generally spin narratives because it's all they have left to do.
When vegetable/seed oils are turned into solid fats, like shortening or margarine, trans fats (in particular, partially hydrogenated oils) occur. They have only recently been restricted in the US, at least to some extent. They cause heart disease.
> Partially hydrogenated vegetable oils were an increasingly significant part of the human diet for about 100 years, especially after 1950 as processed food rose in popularity.[66] The deleterious effects of trans fat consumption are scientifically accepted.
> The most important health risk identified for trans fat consumption is an elevated risk of coronary artery disease (CAD).[72] A 1994 study estimated that over 30,000 cardiac deaths per year in the U.S. are attributable to the consumption of trans fats.[30] By 2006 upper estimates of 100,000 deaths were suggested.[73] A comprehensive review of studies of trans fats published in 2006 in the New England Journal of Medicine reports a strong and reliable connection between trans fat consumption and CAD, concluding that "On a per-calorie basis, trans fats appear to increase the risk of CAD more than any other macronutrient, conferring a substantially increased risk at low levels of consumption (1 to 3% of total energy intake)".[60]
That's true but it's a separate matter. Yes, vegetable and seed oils can be unhealthy if they are processed into trans fats, but otherwise they can be healthy.
Whole Foods, for example, banned trans fats 20 years ago, but they sell many products with vegetable and seed oils, and those are generally healthy.
Two YouTube videos and a blog has the same credibility as one YouTube video.
>certain types of vegetable oil and hydrogenated oil shortened the survival of stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rats by decreasing platelet number, increasing hemorrhagic tendency and damaging kidney functions, which could not be accounted for by their fatty acid and phytosterol compositions.[0]
The whole article is worth a read. Note this is about vegetable oils in general but the discussion at hand is about lipids from meat vs lipids from other sources.
Is it just me, or is the nutrivore website unbearably slow? It's taking several seconds to render on each chunk of page scrolling, and I'm on a maxed out m2
The moral of all these tales is that the best diet is composed of a reasonable balance of varied foods that you like, not something that takes the meter to +/-11.
Really the problem is with the headline, which is probably all most people will see and read. The title should probably say TVA improves cancer fighting immune system. Is dairy and beef the only source ? My sense is no.
A I've gotten older, I've found that my overall health mostly starts in the gut. I got hit with a form of chronic fatigue syndrome from leaky gut in 2019 that was so bad that I burned out and lost the ability to work for about 6 months. A variation of the Autoimmune Protocol (AIP) diet is what worked for me:
* Avoid wheat and most grains (rice and corn are fine)
* Avoid milk and young cheese (cheddar is fine but YMMV)
* Avoid FODMAPs like beans, other legumes and nightshades
* Get back to macro nutrients like bacon & eggs for breakfast, meat & rice, etc
* Get back to micro nutrients like spinach for iron and a thyroid supplement for iodine
* Seek holistic approaches like ashwagandha to restore hormone balance
* Build gut health with probiotics and get treated for parasites if necessary
* Look into supplements like glutamine and colostrum which rebuild the gut
* Decrease caffeine and stress which lower the activation threshold for nerves in the gut to purge its contents
* Drink a gallon of water per day, from one large container if necessary, to accommodate ADHD/autism symptoms
* Exercise by alternating weightlifting and walking each day, about 60 minutes ideally
Each food damages the villi in the small intestine at a different rate, but the gut only regenerates twice per week. Gluten causes some of the worst damage, which remains hidden until middle age when the ability to regenerate starts to decrease.
Now I believe that GMOs and processed foods are so damaging not due to stuff like preservatives, but because low cost means a higher percentage of fillers like gluten.
It took 3-5 years but I'm able to eat FODMAPs again, tolerate milk every day and even eat wheat a couple of times per week. I consider myself to be in remission but must be mindful of what I eat.
I'm also hopeful that long COVID studies will reveal some of the disease mechanisms at work in these types of undiagnosable conditions. Gaslighting (not believing patients as they describe symptoms) is still a huge problem in western medicine.
Some thoughts. About the bacon, try to avoid frying it too hard. In general heavily fried food contain acyclic aromatic hydrocarbons which are inflammatory and carcinogenic through increased oxidative stress. With that said, I very lightly fry my eggs and don't feel negative effects. With supplements like Ashwaghanda and St. Johns Wort make sure to check that they don't have an interaction with medication - these two in particular tend to interact widely. Indeed proper water intake is hugely important. And as for walking, even 7000 steps per day can be considered light-medium exercise.
Thanks, good points! I've been migrating away from pork on my journey towards vegetarianism, but it really helped me in the beginning. It has something like tryptophan that works as an antidepressant for me. Also good advice on supplements, please talk to a doctor before taking any besides a daily multivitamin. It's contraindicated for stuff like multiple sclerosis where a stronger immune system just causes more damage.
Looks like a solid approach. I've mostly gravitated in the same direction after my last "mystery disease". I would add yoga/meditation and mindfulness to that list as well as the importance of sleep. Sleep seem to impact me more than anything else. I used to be up all night working and coding. I like the night. But it seems more and more obvious to me how bad this is for my wellbeing. That, and also to get enough natural sunlight during the day, but this is also intimately linked with sleep of course.
Mindfulness meditation is hugely important. The amount of gain from 10 minutes a day is clearly noticeable after a week or two. I personally often feel better right after do it (even though that isn't expressly the goal).
For what it’s worth I started developing auto immune symptoms after my exposure to Covid (nerve pain in my face, legs, feet, inner ear was burning and had a lack of balance, fatigue, trembling) only thing that resolved it was exercise (moderate to heavy weight lifting) and a strict carnivore diet over 3 months. I’d probably put more stock into the exercise but my working theory was low testosterone and poor diet was preventing me from recovering.
3 years later and if I go a few months without exercise the nerve pain starts to come back in my face heh
> There is a growing body of evidence about the detrimental health effects of consuming too much red meat and dairy, so this study shouldn’t be taken as an excuse to eat more cheeseburgers and pizza; rather, it indicates that nutrient supplements such as TVA could be used to promote T cell activity.
>> "Considering the sheer quantity of cheese I consume daily, I should have gotten cancer many times over now. Therefore, my body must have exceptional anti-cancer properties."
I know they have a fatal attraction, quite literally. But if you manage to get rid of all that junk, you can pretty much eat what you want from the selection of real foods like whole wheat bread, fruits and vegetables, eggs, meats. Mix and match a reasonable balance between those, and you strike a good balance.
The current top comment [0] on this submission said he was "curious about this being a trans fat". This would be a result of biohydrogenation, where the bacteria in the ruminants stomachs will add hydrogen to the unsaturated oils.
Immune function analysis displayed significantly lower phagocytosis of monocytes and granulocytes in an older vegetarian population (vs. older nonvegetarians (P < 0.05, P < 0.001). Similar effect of diet was observed as decreased phagocytic activity of granulocytes in younger vegetarians. Regardless of age, respiratory burst of phagocytic cells was also significantly decreased in women vegetarians versus nonvegetarians (P < 0.05, P < 0.001). Older vegetarians revealed significantly suppressed proliferative response of T-lymphocytes to mitogens (P < 0.001).
In conclusion, our data indicate that a vegetarian diet might have a possible impact on human immune response.
I find these studies to be deeply flawed. It is a multivariate situation and we cannot control/observe more than one variable mostly and still end up mistaking these correlations to be causation.
It could well be that it is not diary or meat but the amount of glucose/fructose one eats which really affects this. We must go back to molecular level proofs rather than these kind of statistical studies where you cannot control everything (apart from mouse models which most people reject for being a mouse model)
“There are many studies trying to decipher the link between diet and human health, and it’s very difficult to understand the underlying mechanisms because of the wide variety of foods people eat. But if we focus on just the nutrients and metabolites derived from food, we begin to see how they influence physiology and pathology,” said Jing Chen, PhD, the Janet Davison Rowley Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine at UChicago and one of the senior authors of the new study.
> It is a multivariate situation [...] It could well be that it is not diary or meat but the amount of glucose/fructose one eats which really affects this.
Your missing puzzle piece is the fact that we do multivariate adjustment models to adjust for cofounders.
You might as well ask "How do we know whether it's the cigarettes or the fact that people who don't smoke also tend to exercise and eat vegetables? I guess we can never know!"
It is an epistemic error to say "we did something about X, therefore X is not a problem". There are always characteristics of a population that aren't modeled. This is why randomization is considered so important.
Some but not all. In the case of meat, it so happens that a homogenous population of non-smokers in the US, the Seventh-Day Adventists, have a very high proportion of vegetarians…
There might be an impact, but it’s not clear what the impact is. I’m no biologist, but I’d wager your volume of immune cells changes quite a bit over your lifetime. I’d be more interested in seeing the long-term health outcomes of vegetarians vs. non-vegetarians.
This comment is from a completely different paper and is looking at various blood count levels of 174 women. The submitted paper seems more interesting and is investigating TVA in particular as a potential supplement to complement other cancer treatments.
I suspect that the way the body processes food is modified significantly by exercise. So, it's not the food you are eating, but rather it's the food you are eating combined with how active or sedentary your lifestyle is. I think that exercise has a marked effect on the gut's microbiome.
Like almost all of these publications, for HN purposes this title really needs "in mice" explicitly added to the end, because there is no reason for a Nature publication to put it in, but a lot of folks will never read the paper.
It's shocking how little we know about what is "good" and what is "bad" for the body. There are too many confounding factors around meat, such as using processed meats and meats cooked with seed oils.
For me, eating as clean as possible is the best approach. Find meat that isn't loaded up with hormones, antibiotics, or mold toxins. Find non-GMO vegetables that aren't loaded with pesticides. Limit carbs and dairy as much as possible. No stimulants, barbiturates, or other drugs.
"It's shocking how little we know about how food affects the body. That's why I follow this trendy diet based on assumptions about how food affects the body."
In the last 70 years, the human diet has become polluted with chemicals and shifted to refined carbs, concurrent with the rise of heart disease and diabetes. And I'm the one following the "trend" by eliminating those things? Not sure you know what that word means.
It's the blanket disapproval of anything arbitrarily deemed "impure".
Genetically modified crops are as safe as any other food. Balancing intake & output (of calories) is the only practical reason to avoid carbs and dairy (obviously it should go without saying but I'll say it anyways: unless you have lactose intolerance or celiac or some other condition). Hormones, antibiotics, and "mold toxins" are not what's bad about industrial-scale livestock farming.
we honestly just don't know. We believe genetically modified crops are as safe and our current understanding of food science suggests that is likely true. There are huge swaths of people who are changing up the food they eat and reflecting on how they feel that is not captured in any way that is accepted by modern food science. Not even calories in / out is well understood because your body changes how it takes in, processes, and uses the calories it gets. It is a dynamic system. I have personally weighed and measured my food for extended periods and I lost weight eating more calories while maintaining the same exercise routine. In "That Sugar Film," the filmmaker keeps the calories the same but changes the source to more sugar and they got a fatty liver and extra belly fat. If you watch "my 600lb life", some people gain weight because they reduce their calorie intake too much and their body goes into a "starvation mode" and starts capturing calories as additional fat.
The type of food you put in matters and we don't have a good grasp on all the ways our bodies handle it. What we do know is that we are eating things now that historically we have not and that alone is a good reason to be suspect of it.
I agree with you that it is complex. Certainly we agree that Calories are just rough abstraction to simplify a complex system in a way that is manageable for day-to-day use.
What I am saying is that a blanket rejection of anything arbitrarily deemed to be "impure" is not good.
> we are eating things now that historically we have not and that alone is a good reason to be suspect of it
So, in other words, "Reject modernity, embrace tradition"
The only way to actually know is with “dispensable” humans and long term studies. That’s not ethical and never going to happen so I guess we’ll never know.
I stopped eating most processed foods and now mostly consume beef in the form of steaks, chicken and vegetables. Never felt better. I also stopped eating mass amounts of sugar and carbs.
I'd love to hear what sources these claims are from. I'm vegetarian, and every time I've come across these "vegetarians live longer" claims it's from dubious sources that cite random tiny studies in isolation.
I could believe modern factory farming, preservation, and mass-preparation techniques make meat much less healthy (than it used to be in our ancestral days), but a general "meat cooking brings carcinogens [to a level that matters, beyond plant cooking does]" sounds pretty unlikely too.
Need to control for healthy habits also associated with healthier diets, such as exercising, not smoking, etc. It should also eliminate any participants with clearly unhealthy habits like poor diets consisting of fast food and living extremely sedentary lifestyles (different from just not exercising).
There is no large long-term double-blind controlled study comparing a vegetarian/vegan diet to some omnivore diet - and there never will be.
The only diet studies are observational, and they are unreliable in all kinds of ways. The famous Blue Zones book has about the validity of Rich Dad Poor Dad or The Millionaire Next Door. But the book continues to sell, and at a macro level, its advice is not terrible, but it's also not "the only way."
Surprisingly (to me), there is some evidence that some people are genetically better disposed to eating a vegetarian diet than others.
With all the information available and research about nutrition really impacts our lives... I find myself wondering if there really is a benefit for a layman like myself to keeping up, or if the overall best advice still sits at: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."
Huh. From reading the article it doesn't seem like a nutrient and more a signaling thing (activates a receptor on the cell's surface).
Could this be a hormesis effect?
For example, the body reacts to things like exercise or UV by amping up repair and immune system. Perhaps the body is amping up its immune system in response to consuming meat/milk due to carcinogen or disease risks?
“There is early data showing that other fatty acids from plants signal through a similar receptor, so we believe there is a high possibility that nutrients from plants can do the same thing by activating the CREB pathway as well,” he said.
The study suggests that TVA could be used as a dietary supplement to help various T cell-based cancer treatments, although Chen points out that it is important to determine the optimized amount of the nutrient itself, not the food source. There is a growing body of evidence about the detrimental health effects of consuming too much red meat and dairy, so this study shouldn’t be taken as an excuse to eat more cheeseburgers and pizza; rather, it indicates that nutrient supplements such as TVA could be used to promote T cell activity. Chen thinks there may be other nutrients that can do the same."
It's an interesting and weirdly loaded angle to suggest that the only red meat foods are unhealthy (by picking unhealthy foods as examples). Consider this alternative phrasing:
> this study shouldn’t be taken as an excuse to eat more venison, cabbage, and mash.
Is it really the best thing to be finding the correct soup of isolated nutrients to take in a multi-pill, as opposed to admitting that perhaps it can be healthy to include some red meat sources in your diet? Cutting out red meat is clearly not some panacea.
I still think the point of the “next” comment is that we didn’t really learn anything — except that there’s more to learn. To your point, way too much nuance here, and it sounds like the title — and maybe article — is clickbait.
Because this identified a specific nutrient, and a specific pathway for its action. The "eating food improves immune response" is an absurd characterization.
The mistake is trying to to scry personal life guidance out of research papers. Research papers just describe experimental results, and sometimes unsound ones.
They're meant to feed further research and bring prestige to the authors, not to help intellectuals hyperoptimize their longevity or whatever.
It's a widespread mistake, especially among intellectuals who take pride in being able to read jargon, but what you're calling "impossible to deal with" is actually just the outcome of trying to use things in a way they're not meant to be used.
If you really want guidance (you actually don't need much), either look to traditions if you're comfortable with that or turn to institutional guidelines if you want something that feels more evidence-based and modern. Neither of those is unassailable either, but at least then you're using things as intended. You'll have less grief and frustration that way.
> turn to institutional guidelines if you want something that feels more evidence-based and modern.
"feels" is the right word here, unfortunately. Often, these are heavily out of date, influenced by power struggles inside the institutions and by external incentives, and get watered down by the need for generality and for avoiding liability. So the average person is left with very little to go by, which is why people either flock to study after study, choose "bro science" instead, or just stick to traditions even in places where they're not helpful.
Upvoted to raise awareness. The average DYOR type is lacking a lot of context with regard to research goals and process. There aren't absolutes, there are snapshots or milestones of understanding given specific criteria - at best.
there's a strange phenomenon when you try to dig deeper than current accepted textbooks and read pubmed, you end up in less certainty. Science behave like a lens, validated data (yet about to be obsolete potentially) is in focus, illogical is fuzzy, but unproven is fuzzy too.
Nah. "Beef" is too broad a category. There are lean cuts and high fat cuts, there are many methods of preparation and countless ways to season. Someone eating maple glazed brisket with a side of extra crispy bacon and buttered scrambled eggs is very different from someone else eating a grilled sirloin seasoned with salt and black pepper.
This crusade against red meat is honestly tiring.
I subscribe to "eat a little bit of everything in moderation. Mostly what's available in nature and what someone in a farm or at home could produce. Be mindful of the total number of calories. Try not to burn or overcook food in general. Exercise a little bit most days. Don't neglect sleep."
(Which to me reads like a lot of common sense advice that my grandparents already knew and followed with no struggle)
I believe the crusade against red meat comes mostly from the environmental footprint which is pretty much the same for sirloin and brisket, and significant even for industrial grown cattle.
If that were truly the case the crusaders would be trying to stymie the meat industry on environmental legislative grounds. Instead all we get is some abstracted sense of blame at the consumer level, no real action, no real teeth, no real change to industry or society.
How do you suggest people change a massive, incumbent, dominant animal ag industry married to the government (e.g. billions of subsidies per year, ag-gag laws) without changing personal attitudes about animal ag and consumer level behavior? And why can't they do both at once?
Animal-free products from nut milks to meat alternatives are a growing industry, so clearly something is working without having to somehow do the impossible task of changing the government and doing it independent of popular opinion.
The output of nutrition science (using the word "science" loosely - the epistemic standard is not very high) must be examined with the understanding that the field is extraordinarily biased by religious and political considerations, e.g. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327179700_The_Globa...
In particular, there are a number of political and religious factions opposed especially to red meat.
Yeah I stopped paying attention to cancer research. Someone should aggregate all the cancer headlines just to show people how many of them there are.
I lost my SO 6 years ago to a weird form of cancer that fed on her estrogen, so doctors tried to put her into menopause to stop its growth. That's hell on earth, like taking away the soul of a woman.
So for years every single cancer headline made me react, but after a while you get jaded because you never see them lead anywhere.
my father is currently dealing with male equivalent of this (prostate cancer) . Yea taking away a harmone is a slow and painful march to death. I don't wish this on anyone.
I've given up on 'scientific' nutritional advice and now go with my intuition informed by my personal observations. What I have observed is that people who eat lots of carbs seem to get fat, people who eat lots of processed foods look terrible all around, people who are vegan tend to look like cancer patients, people who are vegetarian but also eat eggs and/or fish look reasonably healthy, and people who eat lots of roasted meat, vegetables and eggs seem to have the best outcomes.
I trust my observations of people I know more than the claims of celebrities. The vegans I've met have pallor skin, very low muscle mass, and look 10-15 years older than they really are. Vegan diets are very often deficient in various nutrients so their bodies start to cannibalize muscle mass and skin tissue, leading to weakness and premature aging. That's what my observations and intuition tells me.
If you don't want to eat cute animals that's fine, I think you can be reasonably healthy eating a mostly vegetarian diet with some eggs and small fish. But complete veganism is slow death, I won't go there.
Vegans look like cancer patients and are slowly dying, and vegan celebrities are lying. These are some bold takes.
A simple Google search will tell you vegans actually have a longer life expectancy (among other health benefits). Although it's not totally clear why this is.
So maybe the vegans who look like cancer patients to you are in fact old healthy vegans ;-)
Just walk into any significant veg(an) restaurant at a busy hour and look around you. You' might even find the opposite of what you are made to believe to be true.
But no matter what, I'm afraid you will convince yourself you don't have the obligation to adjust any corrupted views, but do the opposite because you can't handle the reality. And sadly you're far from alone.
And actually I get it. It's not easy to open your eyes and acknowledge your part in the (largely unnecessary) immense suffering we bring to billions of animals each year, and the destruction that comes with animal agriculture.
But please don't make it harder for the people who are trying to change things a bit, and stop spreading your made up stuff and ancient myths.
For me all this BS is the only actually difficult part of being a vegan.
Not impossible, just a potential "lower quality of information?"
I can't speak for anyone else, but I've grown to understand the following:
My grandma, with whom I share a bunch of DNA, lived to be a healthy 100 and drank milk to the very end; which is why I'm probably going to do the same. The quality of that "datapoint" for me is (almost objectively) much higher than ANY study could ever produce?
- "Eat whole food, not too much, (maybe) mostly plants". Do some form of exercise for some time at least 5/7 days.
- Listen to your body and do what makes you feel best (e.g. types of foods, meal timing and # of meals per day, types of exercises and amounts). I really believe that people's bodies work differently enough that even excluding extreme cases, no one diet is best for everyone
- Genetics, some people are just unlucky or lucky
Also for cancer, 99% of things have increase your risk by some amount; including every food, because simply metabolizing causes chemical reactions which (when unlucky) cause cancer. The important things to watch out for are those which carry a very noticeable, substantial increase, like benzene and radiation; studies show that red meat and nitrites correlate with increased risk, but it's ambiguous how significant they are especially with the other correlated factors (like bad eating in general).
My least favorite genre is the 100 papers saying X is bad to eat and 100 saying X is good to eat. Just have common sense and eat everything in moderation. Food absolutists are weird/annoying. Especially the trad-fascist "seed oils and soy bad, red meat good" crowd. Just a bunch of dorks.
This might sound like the naturalistic fallacy, but if people have been eating things in quantity for hundreds of thousands of years, the worst outcomes have probably been weeded out of the gene pool.
If it’s new in the last 10,000 years (the beginning of agriculture) we have at least some hope that the worst problems have been dealt with, although we do have lactose and gluten intolerance as counter examples.
If it’s new to the human diet in the last hundred years, maybe it’s fine, and maybe it isn’t. It has to pretty obviously kill you for people to notice.
Animals, fruit, and root vegetables have been in the human diet since before humans left Africa. That’s my rule of thumb.
Yes, but people are often interested in nutrition not to avoid 'worst outcomes', but to reduce risk factors as they age. Evolution isn't so good at selecting for diets that push the median life expectancy from 75 to 85.
Agriculture may have existed for 10k years or something, but it's not like everyone switched over to that lifestyle immediately. There have also been peoples that lived as nomadic herders and even hunter gatherers into even modern to almost-modern times.
Yes. My ancestry is mostly British isles, and it looks like agriculture took hold there only about 6000 years ago. Possibly arrived with the Indo-Europeans?
The entire point of diet advice and nutritional science is trying to find out what "in moderation" means for different foods. The amount of donuts that is moderate and the amount of broccoli that is moderate are not equal.
Quite a bit of nutrition research is simply useless. They ask a bunch of people what they ate and then try to correlate that with health outcomes. You will never learn anything that way, though it might give you areas for further research.
The next step up is a randomized controlled trial, but instead of choosing health outcomes they choose measurements of lab tests as their endpoints. Someone’s cholesterol went up or down by some small number. What did we learn? Nothing.
Unfortunately good research is outrageously expensive, so it doesn’t get done.
Mixed results can also be evidence that everything is fraudulent and nobody is even pretending to try and replicate things. And as a layperson, even honest noise isn't useful.
That’s simply because confirmation bias heavily influences perspective. If I want something to be true, I wouldn’t be hard pressed to find research or conduct my own that could make a solid argument for it.
Often context matters. Something can be good for one cancer and bad for another. Or be good for cancer but bad for heart disease. Or bad for cancer but good for heart disease. Something may cause cancer if you force feed far more than a human could reasonably consume, but harmless at normal quantities.
which is why so many of us just say "moderation and eat a varied diet". Once in a while science settles on something that is true for everyone, but real science is hard.
Tomorrow we'll see an article that says: "beef consumption tied to higher rates of cancer". Sorry to be cynical.
I'll never forget - back when Google News was more about an amalgamation of all articles from around the web - there were 2 articles in the "coffee" category: "Coffee consumption linked to cancer" and then "Coffee consumption linked to lower cancer".
The answer is really moderation. Michael Pollan puts it well: "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants".
Well sometimes the solution to cancer is more cancer. Larger animals like elephants and whales don't die from cancer because their cancer gets cancer before it manages to spread. These hypertumors then compete with and deprive the original cancer of blood flow, so they all end up starving.
When you think about it we mostly cure cancer with ionizing radiation, which is ironically notorious for causing it in the first place.
Alternately, it's example of how absurdly some obsess over it.
Excepting bad luck and pretty-obvious excess, almost everybody will have about 6-7 decades of adulthood and maybe 1-2 decades of slowing down and feeling less capable in the last of those. If you can come to terms with that, and many do, there's not a lot to worry about.
All the obsessing people get up to here is a kind of "premature optimization" that often sends people flailing around between research trends without any of the rigor or continuity that might have yeilded benefit anyway. It's a lot of time, effort, and mental energy stolen from the most vibrant and impactful stage of life in questionable hope of squeezing a teensy bit more out of the least.
From Dr. Robert Lustig in his book, Metabolical (highly recommended):
"Michael Pollan (full disclosure, he’s a friend), in his now-famous New York Times Magazine article, espoused seven simple words: Eat food, not too much, mostly plants. Three separate clauses, but I think that each clause is misleading. Eat food doesn’t take into account that some people may do better on a low-fat diet, while others may do better on a high-fat diet. Not too much doesn’t say how you are supposed to moderate that, as it doesn’t take into account food addiction or what generates satiety. And mostly plants doesn’t take into account that Coke, French fries, and Doritos are all plant-based. If you buy your organic, all-natural, GMO-free tortilla chips at Whole Foods, you’re still stuffing your liver and starving your gut—you’re just paying more for the privilege."
> doesn’t take into account that Coke, French fries, and Doritos are all plant-based
By the very definition Pollan gives, none of those are food, they are lab concoctions that have been invented in the last few generations. Like the advice given about McDonalds by all the doctors and nutritionists in Super Size Me, a healthy person should never eat them.
When Pollan says "eat food", he means "real" things that exist naturally. [Note 1]
He also introduces the "grandma test" which is to say you shouldn't eat anything your grandma wouldn't recognize as food. A glass of black fizzy liquid sugar? no. Drink water.
[Note 1] I often think about this like the periodic table. Many of the elements that have been on the table forever (low atomic numbers) can be found just lying around on the ground (Gold, Copper, etc.). They are "real".
Almost all the ones added in the last few decades (nihonium, moscovium, tennessine) (high atomic numbers) never exist naturally and must be concocted in a lab under extremely specific circumstances. Often they only exist for a fraction of a second. They are "fake".
Can you find an Apple, spinach, meat or fish out in nature? Yes - that's "real" food.
Can you find Doritos or coke out in nature? No - that's not food.
This feels like an overly complex response to a statement that's intentionally simple though.
The whole point of Pollan's statement is to have simple guidelines that ignore optimizations in favor of directionally good flexibility, which makes me feel like Lustig either misses Pollan's point, or just believes in a completely different philosophy.
That is a very good way to eat thousands of calories per day in excess of base metabolic need, which for nearly everyone will result in significant weight gain.
Spoken like someone who thinks theoretically but without any practical experience with the diet!
What actually happens is that you get satiated a LOT faster because beef is so nutrient dense, so you end up eating fewer calories and most people only eat two meals a day because they just stay satiated for so long. You also never experience the drowsiness that normally comes after eating.
This is a zero carb diet which is high in protein, so you'll find yourself effortlessly putting on muscle and losing belly fat.
When I say "entirely beef", that means "you can't put anything in your mouth that is not literally part of a cow" -- so that means no junk food, no sugar, no alcohol, not calories through drinking anything. It is the ultimate elimination diet because it is nutritionally complete yet ridiculously simple.
People call it "the lion diet" and if you actually try it you'll end up in phenomenal shape and you'll feel like you're running on jet fuel.
I've never gone full meat, but I've certainly eaten 5000+ clean(ish) calories a day while working out HARD and put on a significant amount of muscle. Happily eat a 28 oz steak for dinner, then 1000 calorie breakfast, then a thousand calorie shake..
I have to ask, where are you getting your fibre, vitamins and minerals from?
Please tell me you're at least taking a multivitamin.
You don’t need any fiber in your diet. In fact, you’ll notice that if you stick with eating only beef then the volume of your poop will fall by 75% and you’ll spend 75% less time on the toilet.
As for vitamins and minerals, beef has 100% of everything you need, especially if you eat all parts of the animal (liver, etc). Fresh beef even contains vitamin C.
This is the diet our ancestors ate for hundreds of thousands of years. We were hunters, not gatherers.
Red meat has been demonstrated to have carcinogenic properties for quite some time. It's uncertain whether the discovery of this obscure "nutrient" justifies the associated risks...
Those studies that link red meat to cancer are all epidemiological and causal relationships can't be drawn from them. For example, one possible confounder could be that population of people that eat red meat also eat higher amounts of fast food or they might have higher bmi than those that don't.
Also, always note how the studies never say "red meat causes cancer", they say "red meat is linked to cancer". Linked being the key word.
> Those studies that link red meat to cancer are all epidemiological and causal relationships can't be drawn from them.
There is an extensive body of studies that show a direct link between amines produced from exposing meat to high temperature in animals. You can disagree on the dosage used in the studies but I wouldn't ignore them completely. Here are a few:
Sugimura T, Wakabayashi K, Nakagama H, Nagao M. Heterocyclic amines: Mutagens/carcinogens produced during cooking of meat and fish. Cancer Science 2004; 95(4):290–299.
Ito N, Hasegawa R, Sano M, et al. A new colon and mammary carcinogen in cooked food, 2-amino-1-methyl-6-phenylimidazo[4,5-b]pyridine (PhIP). Carcinogenesis 1991; 12(8):1503–1506.
Kato T, Ohgaki H, Hasegawa H, et al. Carcinogenicity in rats of a mutagenic compound, 2-amino-3,8-dimethylimidazo[4,5-f]quinoxaline. Carcinogenesis 1988; 9(1):71–73.
Kato T, Migita H, Ohgaki H, et al. Induction of tumors in the Zymbal gland, oral cavity, colon, skin and mammary gland of F344 rats by a mutagenic compound, 2-amino-3,4-dimethylimidazo[4,5-f]quinoline. Carcinogenesis 1989; 10(3):601–603.
Ohgaki H, Kusama K, Matsukura N, et al. Carcinogenicity in mice of a mutagenic compound, 2-amino-3-methylimidazo[4,5-f]quinoline, from broiled sardine, cooked beef and beef extract. Carcinogenesis 1984; 5(7):921–924.
Ohgaki H, Hasegawa H, Suenaga M, et al. Induction of hepatocellular carcinoma and highly metastatic squamous cell carcinomas in the forestomach of mice by feeding 2-amino-3,4-dimethylimidazo[4,5-f]quinoline. Carcinogenesis 1986; 7(11):1889–1893.
Shirai T, Sano M, Tamano S, et al. The prostate: A target for carcinogenicity of 2-amino-1-methyl-6-phenylimidazo[4,5-b]pyridine (PhIP) derived from cooked foods. Cancer Research 1997; 57(2):195–198.
They try, but not successfully. It is called the healthy user effect. If something is already considered unhealthy by conventional wisdom then people trying to be healthy dont do that thing. And it's extremely difficult to account for because the differences between those people and everyone else are very large and difficult to lock down, since they will tend to do lots and lots of things that you are supposed to do for good health, but most people dont.
They try isolate confounders using statistical methods but these are not intervention studies and they rely on self reported data. There are obvious limitations with such approaches. You could imagine that people who are careful enough with their diet to completely avoid red meat also probably do physical activity of some sort. How many people that avoid red meat in their diet also eat at mcdonalds?
They aren't locking people up in a resort and strictly monitoring and controlling what they ingest.
Would you also bite that bullet with regard to the association between cigarettes and lung cancer? We don’t have RCTs.
How do we know that it’s not just the fact that people who smoke also don’t exercise? Well, it’s simple: we trivially adjust for exercise. Just like we have prospective cohort research on unprocessed vs processed red meat: we can design studies that measure it.
(This is aimed at your sibling comment) If you’re saying there’s a confounder we don’t know about in play: then what is it and what evidence would you bring to the table to justify its inclusion in our inference model? Note: that evidence would have to be at least as good as the evidence you’re rejecting for not having that magical secret confounder.
That said, even before getting to cancer outcomes, I would replace red meat with another protein source just to avoid saturated fat. And if I was only moved by cancer outcomes and refused to change my high red meat diet, I would ensure I'm eating lots of veg/fruit to insulate myself against the risks which is what you see in the Tomorrow Alberta Project prospective cohort analysis among the highest red meat eaters who also ate the most fruit/veg.
They try to. Unfortunately you can’t account for all of them, because we don’t know all of them.
Once it’s published that X is healthy or Y is unhealthy then people change their lifestyle in accordance. You can’t tell if some other thing that people do because they heard it is healthy is the real cause.
“There is a growing body of evidence about the detrimental health effects of consuming too much red meat and dairy, so this study shouldn’t be taken as an excuse to eat more cheeseburgers and pizza; rather, it indicates that nutrient supplements such as TVA could be used to promote T cell activity.”
I’m also curious about this being a trans fat. I’ve heard public health campaigning that trans fats are unhealthy, but this research highlights one as a potential cancer therapy. It is apparently another case of un-nuanced popular ideas about health and nutrition not being the whole truth.