4 ms·

> mechanistic studies involving direct feeding & measurement I believe that's the fancy terminology for "We fed people with substance X and blood marker Y went

> mechanistic studies involving direct feeding & measurement I believe that's the fancy terminology for "We fed people with substance X and blood marker Y went up", correct me if I'm wrong. How is that in any way reliable unless it's proven that elevated blood marker Y causes CVD? It's only reliable if you want to prove that food X causes elevated Y. Also, I find it amusing that you're deriding observational studies, yet the study you're quoting is observational. And a big problem with a study like this is that it wouldn't discern between a high-protein diet consisting of bacon/sausages and one consisting of grass-fed beef. Processed meat contains all kind of shit, it's a major staple in people's diets and it's not surprising to me at all if people eating that have more health problems.

cageface 9y ago
Observational studies are inferior, it's true, but how do you propose to measure long term mortality rates in a direct feeding study? Of course the elephant in the room is that it's ecologically impossible to feed the Earth's population a diet high in animal protein so even if you have convinced yourself it's healthier it's really not an option for the long term. One would also hope that the monstrous cruelty of industrial animal agriculture would factor into your considerations at least a little bit.
- pakitan 9y ago
  > how do you propose to measure long term mortality rates in a direct feeding study? Simple, lock lots of people in a building, feed them the same thing for 50 years and then measure :) That's impossible, of course, which is why I try to take all these studies, no matter what the type, no matter which side of the argument they are on, with a monstrous grain of salt. When trying to find the perfect diet, I think it's better to look into the diet of our ancestors and to refer to the works of Dr. Weston Price and Vilhjalmur Stefansson. What they did might not be considered technically "science" because it's not peer-reviewed, doesn't have confidence intervals, mortality rates and whatnot but I consider it much more valuable as they spent years on the field studying people's diets and their health, not sitting in a comfy chair measuring blood cholesterol levels. Inuit lived practically on very fatty meat only. One can only imagine their LDL. Why weren't they dropping dead of cancer, diabetes and heart attacks at 30 years of age? Dr. Price says that in all his travels he didn't come upon a group that thrived on plant food only. If I remember correctly there was a community in the Swiss Alps that lived exclusively on wholegrain rye bread, cheese + some meat once a week and they were very healthy. That's was the diet closest to vegan that he described. Of course, these days with all the nutrition science advancements, with the addition of supplements, it's may be possible to thrive as vegan but I'm not willing to be the guinea pig. And yes, I'm well aware that feeding everyone animal protein is not sustainable in any way but that doesn't have much to do with the discussion whether animal protein is bad for your health or not. Given the problems with modern agriculture, it's questionable whether the Earth can sustain 9 billion vegans in the long term either. I try to take into account the cruelty of industrial farming when choosing my food, at least to certain extent. However, you need to note that the very fact of my existence means hundreds/thousands of critters are being killed. From ecological point of view, the best option would be for me to kill myself, not become a vegan. I just have to draw the line somewhere.
  - cageface 9y ago
    Th Inuit actually do have a fairly high rate of CVD. The idea that they live long healthy lives on an all meat diet is wrong: https://nutritionfacts.org/video/omega-3s-and-the-eskimo-fish-tale/ https://nutritionfacts.org/video/omega-3s-and-the-eskimo-fis... IMO all creatures have a right to fight for their survival, including killing and eating meat if necessary. But humans don’t have to so why should we?
    - pakitan 9y ago
      Well, I didn't say the Inuit live long lives. In fact I haven't been able to find data how long do they live when in their natural environment on traditional diets. But I suspect they don't live that long as it's a harsh environment. It's probably the same effect as animals in the wild vs in the zoo. I checked all the studies in your link and didn't see anything to contradict the notion that they had healthy enough lives. First study is behind a paywall so it's hard to comment but the most damning thing in the abstract is "The mortality from all cardiovascular diseases combined is not lower among the Inuit than in white comparison populations". Shouldn't it be significantly higher when you consider the copious amounts of "unhealthy" food they consume (allegedly 5-10 pounds of meat per day). The paleopathology study involves a grand total of 3 mummies, that all died from trauma, 1 of which was 53 year old woman with signs of atherosclerosis but otherwise no evident heart problems, 1 apparently healthy young woman and 1 woman with severe heart and other health issues, some of which the researcher suggests are the result of a bacterial infection. The Canadian Eskimos study mostly talks about ailments related to their way of life - worn teeth (which were still in excellent condition!!), snow blindness and the like. No mention of degenerative diseases. In fact you'll see a comparison between "traditional" Eskimos and "civilized" ones. If you intended to prove how unhealthy the traditional diet is, this study says just the opposite.

cageface 9y ago

Observational studies are inferior, it's true, but how do you propose to measure long term mortality rates in a direct feeding study? Of course the elephant in the room is that it's ecologically impossible to feed the Earth's population a diet high in animal protein so even if you have convinced yourself it's healthier it's really not an option for the long term. One would also hope that the monstrous cruelty of industrial animal agriculture would factor into your considerations at least a little bit.

pakitan 9y ago
> how do you propose to measure long term mortality rates in a direct feeding study? Simple, lock lots of people in a building, feed them the same thing for 50 years and then measure :) That's impossible, of course, which is why I try to take all these studies, no matter what the type, no matter which side of the argument they are on, with a monstrous grain of salt. When trying to find the perfect diet, I think it's better to look into the diet of our ancestors and to refer to the works of Dr. Weston Price and Vilhjalmur Stefansson. What they did might not be considered technically "science" because it's not peer-reviewed, doesn't have confidence intervals, mortality rates and whatnot but I consider it much more valuable as they spent years on the field studying people's diets and their health, not sitting in a comfy chair measuring blood cholesterol levels. Inuit lived practically on very fatty meat only. One can only imagine their LDL. Why weren't they dropping dead of cancer, diabetes and heart attacks at 30 years of age? Dr. Price says that in all his travels he didn't come upon a group that thrived on plant food only. If I remember correctly there was a community in the Swiss Alps that lived exclusively on wholegrain rye bread, cheese + some meat once a week and they were very healthy. That's was the diet closest to vegan that he described. Of course, these days with all the nutrition science advancements, with the addition of supplements, it's may be possible to thrive as vegan but I'm not willing to be the guinea pig. And yes, I'm well aware that feeding everyone animal protein is not sustainable in any way but that doesn't have much to do with the discussion whether animal protein is bad for your health or not. Given the problems with modern agriculture, it's questionable whether the Earth can sustain 9 billion vegans in the long term either. I try to take into account the cruelty of industrial farming when choosing my food, at least to certain extent. However, you need to note that the very fact of my existence means hundreds/thousands of critters are being killed. From ecological point of view, the best option would be for me to kill myself, not become a vegan. I just have to draw the line somewhere.
- cageface 9y ago
  Th Inuit actually do have a fairly high rate of CVD. The idea that they live long healthy lives on an all meat diet is wrong: https://nutritionfacts.org/video/omega-3s-and-the-eskimo-fish-tale/ https://nutritionfacts.org/video/omega-3s-and-the-eskimo-fis... IMO all creatures have a right to fight for their survival, including killing and eating meat if necessary. But humans don’t have to so why should we?
  - pakitan 9y ago
    Well, I didn't say the Inuit live long lives. In fact I haven't been able to find data how long do they live when in their natural environment on traditional diets. But I suspect they don't live that long as it's a harsh environment. It's probably the same effect as animals in the wild vs in the zoo. I checked all the studies in your link and didn't see anything to contradict the notion that they had healthy enough lives. First study is behind a paywall so it's hard to comment but the most damning thing in the abstract is "The mortality from all cardiovascular diseases combined is not lower among the Inuit than in white comparison populations". Shouldn't it be significantly higher when you consider the copious amounts of "unhealthy" food they consume (allegedly 5-10 pounds of meat per day). The paleopathology study involves a grand total of 3 mummies, that all died from trauma, 1 of which was 53 year old woman with signs of atherosclerosis but otherwise no evident heart problems, 1 apparently healthy young woman and 1 woman with severe heart and other health issues, some of which the researcher suggests are the result of a bacterial infection. The Canadian Eskimos study mostly talks about ailments related to their way of life - worn teeth (which were still in excellent condition!!), snow blindness and the like. No mention of degenerative diseases. In fact you'll see a comparison between "traditional" Eskimos and "civilized" ones. If you intended to prove how unhealthy the traditional diet is, this study says just the opposite.