3 ms·

This seems pretty misleading. The WHO put these meats in the same class in terms of certainty of being a carcinogen in humans, but I don't see any claim about t

This seems pretty misleading. The WHO put these meats in the same class in terms of certainty of being a carcinogen in humans, but I don't see any claim about the rates of cancer caused by each being comparable. That is, they're convinced that it causes some nonzero amount of cancer, but how many cancers it causes is a separate issue. Also, the picture at the top shows a cheeseburger, but ground beef is never actually mentioned in the article as an example of "processed meats". It represents an older consensus (seemingly unrelated to the current topic apart from the shared theme of "meat bad") that excessive red meat intake contributes to health problems.

pilsetnieks 11y ago
Maybe it's the Guardian's fault. The BBC article (http://www.bbc.com/news/health-34620617 http://www.bbc.com/news/health-34620617) does mention some numbers: > Is meat as bad as smoking? > No. > Estimates suggest 34,000 deaths from cancer every year could be down to diets high in processed meat. > That is in contrast to one million deaths from cancer caused by smoking and 600,000 attributed to alcohol each year.
- myth_buster 11y ago
  600,000 attributed to alcohol each year. That number is a bit misleading. Does that include the deaths say due to DUI,, liver damage, poisoning? It ideally shouldn't as we are discussing carcinogens. Edit: Added additional alcohol related deaths.
  - andy_ppp 11y ago
    There are only about 30000 fatalities from all car driving per year.
    - myth_buster 11y ago
      The report indicates that worldwide the total number of road traffic deaths remains unacceptably high at 1.24 million per year. http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/road_safety_status/2013/en/ http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/road_safety_st...
      - andy_ppp 11y ago
        In America [0] (I thought the other stats were American ones too), it actually says in [1] 480000 cigarette deaths which disagrees with the previous stats of 1 million, but a million isn't enough for the world surely? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_i... [1] http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/health_effects/tobacco_related_mortality/ http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/healt...
  - pilsetnieks 11y ago
    From the context it seems that it's just about cancer cases but it is very vague and could mean anything.
  - garrettgrimsley 11y ago
    I found numbers for how many cancer deaths in the US are attributable to alcohol [0] and it puts it at 18 200 to 21 300 deaths. For worldwide figures see Table 1 of this study [1] that breaks down alcohol-attributable deaths by category. It lists alcohol-attributable cancer deaths at 487 000 in the year 2004. So it looks like the number isn't misleading, only unclear. Misleading would have been listing the total 2 225 000 alcohol-attributable deaths. [0] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3673233/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3673233/ [1] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673609607467 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673609...
- tkyjonathan 11y ago
  If you count colorectal, prostate and breast cancer as lifestyle diseases and that (a meat) diet is related to those - then the numbers are very high.

pilsetnieks 11y ago

Maybe it's the Guardian's fault. The BBC article (http://www.bbc.com/news/health-34620617 http://www.bbc.com/news/health-34620617) does mention some numbers: > Is meat as bad as smoking? > No. > Estimates suggest 34,000 deaths from cancer every year could be down to diets high in processed meat. > That is in contrast to one million deaths from cancer caused by smoking and 600,000 attributed to alcohol each year.

myth_buster 11y ago
600,000 attributed to alcohol each year. That number is a bit misleading. Does that include the deaths say due to DUI,, liver damage, poisoning? It ideally shouldn't as we are discussing carcinogens. Edit: Added additional alcohol related deaths.
- andy_ppp 11y ago
  There are only about 30000 fatalities from all car driving per year.
  - myth_buster 11y ago
    The report indicates that worldwide the total number of road traffic deaths remains unacceptably high at 1.24 million per year. http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/road_safety_status/2013/en/ http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/road_safety_st...
    - andy_ppp 11y ago
      In America [0] (I thought the other stats were American ones too), it actually says in [1] 480000 cigarette deaths which disagrees with the previous stats of 1 million, but a million isn't enough for the world surely? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_i... [1] http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/health_effects/tobacco_related_mortality/ http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/healt...
- pilsetnieks 11y ago
  From the context it seems that it's just about cancer cases but it is very vague and could mean anything.
- garrettgrimsley 11y ago
  I found numbers for how many cancer deaths in the US are attributable to alcohol [0] and it puts it at 18 200 to 21 300 deaths. For worldwide figures see Table 1 of this study [1] that breaks down alcohol-attributable deaths by category. It lists alcohol-attributable cancer deaths at 487 000 in the year 2004. So it looks like the number isn't misleading, only unclear. Misleading would have been listing the total 2 225 000 alcohol-attributable deaths. [0] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3673233/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3673233/ [1] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673609607467 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673609...
tkyjonathan 11y ago
If you count colorectal, prostate and breast cancer as lifestyle diseases and that (a meat) diet is related to those - then the numbers are very high.