3 ms·

Newbie here. So now to eat red meat was good? Really confused.

nabla9 9y ago
No. Almost all diets have some positive and some negative effects.. One diet is better than another if its overall effects are better. Has T/S ratio in peripheral blood mononuclear cells have positive effect for health or lifespan of humans, how large the effect is, is it smaller than negative effects of eating meat, ... , lots of questions before we get into a diet.
loeg 9y ago
The study is inconclusive at this point.
narrator 9y ago
It's a low sample size, and observastional, but it points in that direction. The effect is probably IGF-1 related as IGF-1 indirectly activates HTRT and telomere lengthening (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004763740900147X http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047637409...). IGF-1 is also what the non-meat eating lobby use to connect red meat eating with cancer. IGF causes cells to grow. Anything that causes cell growth, even if it generally manifests as bigger muscles, stronger bones or longevity also helps cancer cells grow and gets tagged as bad by association, even though preventing cancer is more about having a strong immune system, early detection and avoiding mutagenic chemical pollutants. There is a huge pro-vegetarian bias is nutrition studies. That's because there are a lot of people who want the world to switch to a vegetarian diet because it is more ecologically sustainable or they are intensely devoted to animal welfare and not necessarily because it is the most healthy.
- georgewsinger 9y ago
  > There is a huge pro-vegetarian bias is nutrition studies. That's because there are a lot of people who want the world to switch to a vegetarian diet because it is more ecologically sustainable or they are intensely devoted to animal welfare and not necessarily because it is the most healthy. This is the first time I've heard people charge nutrition studies are pro-vegetarian. Usually I hear people claiming food industry pressure causes the opposite bias.
1001101 9y ago
FTS: "This study showed that diet rich with red meat can decrease leucocyte telomere length 10 years after receiving diet data." I'd steer (no pun intended) clear if you like your telomeres the length they are.
asciimo 9y ago
There is such a tremendous amount of contradictory research on diet that I wouldn't be too easily swayed by one study or another. I would step back a bit and consider that red meat is definitely bad for our habitat (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_p...), and it's definitely bad for animals (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death).
veddox 9y ago
The study doesn't say whether red meat is "good" or "bad", just that eating red meat correlated (within their study group) with shorter telomere lengths. Telomeres are caps at the end of the chromosomes that serve as a protection against genetic damage. They decrease in length every time a cell divides until they are eventually used up altogether - at which point a healthy cell will initiate self-destruction. Some years back they were a much-hyped focus of aging research, as there was the hypothesis that if you could keep the telomeres long, your cells (and by extension, you) could live indefinitely. In that context, eating red meat would appear to be an unhealthy choice. However, said hypothesis is no longer current. Telomeres probably do play a role in the aging process, but the whole affair is much more complex than just "keep your telomeres long". So basically, never eating red meat again isn't going to make you immortal.

No. Almost all diets have some positive and some negative effects.. One diet is better than another if its overall effects are better. Has T/S ratio in peripheral blood mononuclear cells have positive effect for health or lifespan of humans, how large the effect is, is it smaller than negative effects of eating meat, ... , lots of questions before we get into a diet.

loeg 9y ago

The study is inconclusive at this point.

narrator 9y ago

It's a low sample size, and observastional, but it points in that direction. The effect is probably IGF-1 related as IGF-1 indirectly activates HTRT and telomere lengthening (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004763740900147X http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047637409...). IGF-1 is also what the non-meat eating lobby use to connect red meat eating with cancer. IGF causes cells to grow. Anything that causes cell growth, even if it generally manifests as bigger muscles, stronger bones or longevity also helps cancer cells grow and gets tagged as bad by association, even though preventing cancer is more about having a strong immune system, early detection and avoiding mutagenic chemical pollutants. There is a huge pro-vegetarian bias is nutrition studies. That's because there are a lot of people who want the world to switch to a vegetarian diet because it is more ecologically sustainable or they are intensely devoted to animal welfare and not necessarily because it is the most healthy.

georgewsinger 9y ago
> There is a huge pro-vegetarian bias is nutrition studies. That's because there are a lot of people who want the world to switch to a vegetarian diet because it is more ecologically sustainable or they are intensely devoted to animal welfare and not necessarily because it is the most healthy. This is the first time I've heard people charge nutrition studies are pro-vegetarian. Usually I hear people claiming food industry pressure causes the opposite bias.

1001101 9y ago

FTS: "This study showed that diet rich with red meat can decrease leucocyte telomere length 10 years after receiving diet data." I'd steer (no pun intended) clear if you like your telomeres the length they are.

asciimo 9y ago

There is such a tremendous amount of contradictory research on diet that I wouldn't be too easily swayed by one study or another. I would step back a bit and consider that red meat is definitely bad for our habitat (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_p...), and it's definitely bad for animals (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death).

veddox 9y ago

The study doesn't say whether red meat is "good" or "bad", just that eating red meat correlated (within their study group) with shorter telomere lengths. Telomeres are caps at the end of the chromosomes that serve as a protection against genetic damage. They decrease in length every time a cell divides until they are eventually used up altogether - at which point a healthy cell will initiate self-destruction. Some years back they were a much-hyped focus of aging research, as there was the hypothesis that if you could keep the telomeres long, your cells (and by extension, you) could live indefinitely. In that context, eating red meat would appear to be an unhealthy choice. However, said hypothesis is no longer current. Telomeres probably do play a role in the aging process, but the whole affair is much more complex than just "keep your telomeres long". So basically, never eating red meat again isn't going to make you immortal.