Haley Lescinsky, Ashkan Afshin, Charlie Ashbaugh
Catherine Bisignano, Michael Brauer, Giannina Ferrara, Simon I. Hay, Jiawei He, Vincent Iannucci, Laurie B. Marczak, Susan A. McLaughlin, Erin C. Mullany, Marie C. Parent, Audrey L. Serfes, Reed J. D. Sorensen, Aleksandr Y. Aravkin, Peng Zheng, Christopher J. L. Murray
2022 · Nature Medicine
AbstractCharacterizing the potential health effects of exposure to risk factors such as red meat consumption is essential to inform health policy and practice. Previous meta-analyses evaluating the effects of red meat intake have generated mixed findings and do not formally assess evidence strength. Here, we conducted a systematic review and implemented a meta-regression—relaxing conventional log-linearity assumptions and incorporating between-study heterogeneity—to evaluate the relationships between unprocessed red meat consumption and six potential health outcomes. We found weak evidence of association between unprocessed red meat consumption and colorectal cancer, breast cancer, type 2 diabetes and ischemic heart disease. Moreover, we found no evidence of an association between unprocessed red meat and ischemic stroke or hemorrhagic stroke. We also found that while risk for the six outcomes in our analysis combined was minimized at 0 g unprocessed red meat intake per day, the 95% uncertainty interval that incorporated between-study heterogeneity was very wide: from 0–200 g d−1. While there is some evidence that eating unprocessed red meat is associated with increased risk of disease incidence and mortality, it is weak and insufficient to make stronger or more conclusive recommendations. More rigorous, well-powered research is needed to better understand and quantify the relationship between consumption of unprocessed red meat and chronic disease.
Metadata: Crossref. Abstracts retain their original authors’ rights.
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This is a meta-analysis. “While there is some evidence that eating unprocessed red meat is associated with increased risk of disease incidence and mortality, it is weak and insufficient to make stronger or more conclusive recommendations. More rigorous, well-powered research is needed to better understand and quantify the relationship between consumption of unprocessed red meat and chronic disease.” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01968-z
Here's the recent (Oct 2022) reference to solid science [1] which seems to contradict WP claim of strong evidence: While there is some evidence that eating unprocessed red meat is associated with increased risk of disease incidence and mortality, it is weak and insufficient to make stronger or more conclusive recommendations. More rigorous, well-powered research is needed to better understand and quantify the relationship between consumption of unprocessed red meat and chronic disease. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01968-z
You're obviously right that processed foods are far worse, but the study the article cites[0] doesn't say what the article says it does, not at all. The article deliberately misconstrues the phrase "weak evidence" to mean that the authors are attacking the past studies, when in fact they're just saying more research needs to be done. Here's the opening paragraph of the Discussion section: > We evaluated the relationship between unprocessed red meat consumption and six selected disease outcomes following implementation of a meta-analytic approach. We found that unprocessed red meat intake had weak evidence of an association with increased risk of colorectal cancer, breast…
cancer, IHD and type 2 diabetes and no evidence of an association with ischemic stroke and hemorrhagic stroke. In other words, given all the data available on red meat intake and risk of a subsequent outcome, we estimate that consuming unprocessed red meat across an average range of exposure levels increases the risk of subsequent colorectal cancer, breast cancer, IHD and type 2 diabetes at least slightly compared to eating no red meat (by at least 6%, 3%, 1% and 1%, respectively). [0] Full text here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01968-z#Sec2
This is a misleading headline. The study restricts its focus to unprocessed red meat, indeed the word 'unprocessed' appears 72 times in the study. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01968-z Furthermore, the study does not separate growth-hormone-treated and antibiotic-treated meat, which is widely considered to have higher health risks. Similarly, there's no mention of food-borne illnesses due to microbial contamination, again a higher risk in combined and processed meat (hamburgers, hot dogs, sausage etc.) > "Approximately 128,000 Americans are hospitalized and 3000 die each year from foodborne illness. A ten-year study of 4589 foodborne outbreaks attributed 46%…
of these hospitalizations and 43% of the deaths to meat. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the primary federal agency tasked with regulating food, is aware of these statistics, and characterizes them as “largely preventable.” It is becoming clear that modern meat production methods allow pathogens to spread with ease, creating great food safety risks." If FDA Does Not Regulate Food, Who Will? A Study of Hormones and Antibiotics in Meat Production (2015) https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/0098858815591528 A single animal, raised on crops not contaminated with pesticides and herbicides, nor treated with antibiotics and growth hormones, and butchered in a food-safe manner with due regard for avoiding microbial contamination, is not a health risk. This rules out, what, >95% of domestic USA meat production, at least?
The partisan tone of this article is very grating and makes it hard to take it seriously. It is full of brash, opinionated statements which are not backed up by the actual study [1] the article is based on. I have to conclude that it's being upvoted here because people enjoy eating red meat and want to continue to do so, not because it has any particular merit on its own terms. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01968-z
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