7 ms·

It obviously does not because there are whole populations, such as Tibetans, who consume butter on daily basis and are still alive and well, without any cardiov

by lngnmn 10y ago

It obviously does not because there are whole populations, such as Tibetans, who consume butter on daily basis and are still alive and well, without any cardiovascular epidemic. What is a risk, by the way? How it is defined, apart from a personal lifestyle, diet, habits, current set of disorders and chronic illnesses of a particular person? It is a likelihood? An average of some imagined population of which some non-representative sample is treated according to some abstract, disconnected from reality model of a few selected unproven factors in a complex multiple causation individual phenomena? How the value of that number related to anything meaningful? It passes peer-reviews because it conforms to a socially constructed consensus (the current set of memes) but no one does a review of logic and causality.

kaeluka 10y ago
That's not at all obvious. Tibetans have a very different life style and nutrition than, for instance, westerners.
- coldtea 10y ago
  Which is irrelevant, as it only speaks of total risk. If butter was bad, it would be bad for them too, in a controlled study against not butter eating Tibetans, regardless if they all run 10k miles per day and eat only vegetables.
  - Xdafjgneoiwe 10y ago
    If the sample size was large enough and you could factor our everything else, then yes. I don't think anything like this was done, though. What exactly is your point, then?
    - kaeluka 10y ago
      +1 Additionally, even if you could and would factor out everything else, "obvious" would hardly be the right word to use.
    - coldtea 10y ago
      That the lifestyle difference is irrelevant since any study that measures the impact of a food in health should control for it.
      - tomrod 10y ago
        It can't be controlled for if there is no variation in the population. At that point it becomes a fixed effect--a population-specific intercept, as it were--and the only way to net that out would be through a difference-in-difference type study.
        coldtea 10y ago
        >It can't be controlled for if there is no variation in the population. You think there are no Tibetans who don't exercise much and don't eat much vegetables either?
        tomrod 10y ago
        Depends. The external validity may be questionable due to the height of the Tibetan plateau, epigenetic expression that is potentially common in the nation, or any number of other factors. In other words, conditional randomization is not true randomization required. However, the grandparent comment I understood to be relevant to dietary factors.
Xdafjgneoiwe 10y ago
I do not think you can generalize from Tibetans or other populations. That is because those rural populations often have a much healthier diet than the standard american diet. More vegetables, more fiber, less animal products in general. To say that this obviously shows that butter cannot be that bad is just not true. You are right in one point: If the only thing you eat is butter with your veggies then you do not have much of a problem in terms of a cardiovascular epidemic.
- awjr 10y ago
  I think we focus on diet over environment too much. It isn't just what you eat but how you get around that is vital to tackling the cardiovascular epidemic. The only evidence that I currently have available is the Netherlands. The only western country to have a reducing obesity index, by 2030, predicted to be 8.5% down from 10%. Their diet is a very typical western diet. However their transport system and their urban planning is hugely focused on prioritising walking and cycling with good provision of local amenities within easy cycling distances. Yes, you build higher density urban environments, but this is a good thing.
  - fpoling 10y ago
    In Netherlands it is common to have rather cold temperatures in houses even if people can afford to pay for warmth. And cold requires body to spend much more energy that is coming directly from burning body fat unless one shivering from cold. In fact if one wants to loose like 10 kilos quickly, just climb to Everest. Most of that weight will be spent on body heating, not muscular work. That also explains why butter does not harm people in Tibet. It is not stored as body fat and goes directly into body heat.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - awjr 10y ago
      That's an interesting one I had not considered. Culturally living in a cold environment and not wrapping up warm will have an effect on calorie burn.
Dayshine 10y ago
This is a fault of journalism, not of epidemiology. Studies very rarely go so far as to make any causative claims. Knowing that those who meet condition A have a higher change of condition B is valuable, even if A and B are relatively unconnected.
martincmartin 10y ago
The classic example, since modern nutrition research started in the '50s, is Inuit/Eskimo. They eat a lot of whale blubber, yet have very low rates of heart disease. A good book that presents the case against nutrition research is "The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat & Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet."
- christophilus 10y ago
  I wonder if the Tibetans and Inuits benefit from the fact that their dietary fats come from animals who lived healthy, whole lives. Much of the US consumes dairy and meat that comes from animals who were shoved into dark, overcrowded, stressful, unnatural habitat and fed strange feed that they'd normally not eat such as corn and grain.
  - Elrac 10y ago
    To argue that, you'd have to demonstrate that the fats in animals raised on what you call healthy food differ chemically from the fats you'd find in animals fed otherwise. Related example: The glucose from sugar beets is chemically identical to and indistinguishable from the glucose from sugar cane or corn. Animal fat tends to be a more complex mix, but while no expert I suspect there's only so many different lipid compounds produced and stored in animal cells. After all, the energy currency in any animal's bloodstream is mainly glucose - the source information is lost. There are excellent _ethical_ reasons not to mistreat animals as is today often the case. I'm not sure that there are chemical reasons related to nutrition.
    - KSS42 10y ago
      Yes there is some evidence for that. In particular grass fed beef vs grain fed beef: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/health/is-grass-fed-beef-more-nutritious-than-regular-beef/article28948990/ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/healt... Most claims, however, focus on omega-3 fats, in particular alpha linolenic acid (ALA). Higher intakes of this plant-based omega-3 fatty acid are associated with a lower risk of heart disease, stroke, Type 2 diabetes and depression. According to Dr. Richard Bazinet, a professor in the department of nutritional sciences at the University of Toronto who analyzes fatty acids in beef, grass-fed beef outranks grain-fed beef when it comes to ALA. Conventional beef has about 20 milligrams of ALA in three ounces, whereas the same amount of grass-fed beef has 50 to 100 mg. A big difference? Yes. Meaningful? That depends. Women need 1,100 mg of ALA each day; men require 1,600 mg. Eating a six-ounce grass-fed steak three times a week provides, at most, 5 per cent to 8 per cent of your daily ALA requirement. Keep in mind that during cooking, the ALA content of meat will decrease since ALA is found in fat. Making the switch to other grass-fed animal foods, such as pasture-raised poultry and eggs and grass-fed dairy, could conceivably make an appreciable difference towards your daily ALA needs.

by lngnmn 10y ago

kaeluka 10y ago

That's not at all obvious. Tibetans have a very different life style and nutrition than, for instance, westerners.

coldtea 10y ago
Which is irrelevant, as it only speaks of total risk. If butter was bad, it would be bad for them too, in a controlled study against not butter eating Tibetans, regardless if they all run 10k miles per day and eat only vegetables.
- Xdafjgneoiwe 10y ago
  If the sample size was large enough and you could factor our everything else, then yes. I don't think anything like this was done, though. What exactly is your point, then?
  - kaeluka 10y ago
    +1 Additionally, even if you could and would factor out everything else, "obvious" would hardly be the right word to use.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    That the lifestyle difference is irrelevant since any study that measures the impact of a food in health should control for it.
    - tomrod 10y ago
      It can't be controlled for if there is no variation in the population. At that point it becomes a fixed effect--a population-specific intercept, as it were--and the only way to net that out would be through a difference-in-difference type study.
      - coldtea 10y ago
        >It can't be controlled for if there is no variation in the population. You think there are no Tibetans who don't exercise much and don't eat much vegetables either?
        tomrod 10y ago
        Depends. The external validity may be questionable due to the height of the Tibetan plateau, epigenetic expression that is potentially common in the nation, or any number of other factors. In other words, conditional randomization is not true randomization required. However, the grandparent comment I understood to be relevant to dietary factors.

Xdafjgneoiwe 10y ago

I do not think you can generalize from Tibetans or other populations. That is because those rural populations often have a much healthier diet than the standard american diet. More vegetables, more fiber, less animal products in general. To say that this obviously shows that butter cannot be that bad is just not true. You are right in one point: If the only thing you eat is butter with your veggies then you do not have much of a problem in terms of a cardiovascular epidemic.

awjr 10y ago
I think we focus on diet over environment too much. It isn't just what you eat but how you get around that is vital to tackling the cardiovascular epidemic. The only evidence that I currently have available is the Netherlands. The only western country to have a reducing obesity index, by 2030, predicted to be 8.5% down from 10%. Their diet is a very typical western diet. However their transport system and their urban planning is hugely focused on prioritising walking and cycling with good provision of local amenities within easy cycling distances. Yes, you build higher density urban environments, but this is a good thing.
- fpoling 10y ago
  In Netherlands it is common to have rather cold temperatures in houses even if people can afford to pay for warmth. And cold requires body to spend much more energy that is coming directly from burning body fat unless one shivering from cold. In fact if one wants to loose like 10 kilos quickly, just climb to Everest. Most of that weight will be spent on body heating, not muscular work. That also explains why butter does not harm people in Tibet. It is not stored as body fat and goes directly into body heat.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - awjr 10y ago
    That's an interesting one I had not considered. Culturally living in a cold environment and not wrapping up warm will have an effect on calorie burn.

Dayshine 10y ago

This is a fault of journalism, not of epidemiology. Studies very rarely go so far as to make any causative claims. Knowing that those who meet condition A have a higher change of condition B is valuable, even if A and B are relatively unconnected.

martincmartin 10y ago

The classic example, since modern nutrition research started in the '50s, is Inuit/Eskimo. They eat a lot of whale blubber, yet have very low rates of heart disease. A good book that presents the case against nutrition research is "The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat & Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet."

christophilus 10y ago
I wonder if the Tibetans and Inuits benefit from the fact that their dietary fats come from animals who lived healthy, whole lives. Much of the US consumes dairy and meat that comes from animals who were shoved into dark, overcrowded, stressful, unnatural habitat and fed strange feed that they'd normally not eat such as corn and grain.
- Elrac 10y ago
  To argue that, you'd have to demonstrate that the fats in animals raised on what you call healthy food differ chemically from the fats you'd find in animals fed otherwise. Related example: The glucose from sugar beets is chemically identical to and indistinguishable from the glucose from sugar cane or corn. Animal fat tends to be a more complex mix, but while no expert I suspect there's only so many different lipid compounds produced and stored in animal cells. After all, the energy currency in any animal's bloodstream is mainly glucose - the source information is lost. There are excellent _ethical_ reasons not to mistreat animals as is today often the case. I'm not sure that there are chemical reasons related to nutrition.
  - KSS42 10y ago
    Yes there is some evidence for that. In particular grass fed beef vs grain fed beef: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/health/is-grass-fed-beef-more-nutritious-than-regular-beef/article28948990/ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/healt... Most claims, however, focus on omega-3 fats, in particular alpha linolenic acid (ALA). Higher intakes of this plant-based omega-3 fatty acid are associated with a lower risk of heart disease, stroke, Type 2 diabetes and depression. According to Dr. Richard Bazinet, a professor in the department of nutritional sciences at the University of Toronto who analyzes fatty acids in beef, grass-fed beef outranks grain-fed beef when it comes to ALA. Conventional beef has about 20 milligrams of ALA in three ounces, whereas the same amount of grass-fed beef has 50 to 100 mg. A big difference? Yes. Meaningful? That depends. Women need 1,100 mg of ALA each day; men require 1,600 mg. Eating a six-ounce grass-fed steak three times a week provides, at most, 5 per cent to 8 per cent of your daily ALA requirement. Keep in mind that during cooking, the ALA content of meat will decrease since ALA is found in fat. Making the switch to other grass-fed animal foods, such as pasture-raised poultry and eggs and grass-fed dairy, could conceivably make an appreciable difference towards your daily ALA needs.