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The short answer is that we don't know. Refreshingly enough, this article seems to focus on that fact. There are studies that say eating meat will give you can

The short answer is that we don't know. Refreshingly enough, this article seems to focus on that fact. There are studies that say eating meat will give you cancer, or just kill you younger in general, but there are studies that show the opposite, and studies that show no correlation. And pretty much all of these studies have issues, the biggest usually being, as the article says, that they're observational, based on a subject's ability to remember what they ate, how much they ate of it, and report that information correctly and truthfully. The human body is massively complex, and we just don't know very much about how diet affects it. We know that eating a lower calorie diet helps you lose weight, and that's about the only thing we can prove with any kind of certainty. Does a low-carb diet improve health outcomes? Or a vegan diet? We just don't know, and anyone that tells you they do know is either selling you something or, at best, telling you what worked for them.

modzu 7y ago
such epistemic issues apply to all domains of knowledge. also, anecdotal evidence, ie, "what worked for them", is still valid data, and should be valued as such
- thomascgalvin 7y ago
  > anecdotal evidence, ie, "what worked for them", is still valid data, and should be valued as such It's useful information, but it's also limited information. If Atkins worked for your buddy two cubes down, that might indicate that it's worth trying yourself, but it's less useful in terms of making, say, national level nutritional policy. Though I suppose in this case I'm more worried about lobbying than anecdotal data.
sridca 7y ago
Exactly. Sadly however some people would still prefer to believe WHO's authority and take their meat-causes-cancer factoid to be a fact. > Does a low-carb diet improve health outcomes? Or a vegan diet? We just don't know, and anyone that tells you they do know is either selling you something or, at best, telling you what worked for them. Yup; and the same applies to anyone looking to refute a diet they do not like. For example, a vegan asserting that the carnivore diet is unhealthy and vice versa.
vfc1 7y ago
We do know, all the evidence points in the direction that the western diet, high in animal products and processed foods is the number explanation for the rampant increase of cancer, diabetes and heart disease in the west. This argument is old: we don't know because the perfect experiment has not been conducted and never will and because the studies that we have don't say what we want to hear. If the news is bad, question the source and keep doing the same thing. This was what was done for decades with tobacco, for decades the validity of the argument that it causes cancer was questioned. Here we are in 2019 and still 15% of adults smoke in the US. And still, the perfect experiment was never done and never will. Take any population that is healthy, they move to the west and develop these illnesses. The places in the world that have the best health are the ones that eat fewer animal products. The Inuit that eat only meat and fish have rampant arteriosclerosis. People on the paleo diet have been found to have much higher levels of a biomarker linked to heart disease than people on a normal diet, for which cancer rates are increasing - https://www.sbs.com.au/news/study-links-paleo-diet-to-heart-disease https://www.sbs.com.au/news/study-links-paleo-diet-to-heart-... When a whole country stopped eating animal products for a year (during WW one) their health as a population massively increased. The list goes on and on, we have epidemiological studies, we have population studies, we know some of the mechanisms through which cancer is developed, we know that a plant-based diet reverses heart disease. But we still prefer to keep saying that we just don't know, because we don't like the news.
- smarkov 7y ago
  From the article you linked: > Eating more red meat under the Paleo diet paired with a lack of whole grains results in higher levels of a biomarker linked to heart disease WITH A LACK OF WHOLE GRAINS. Does that mean that red meat is the cause or that the lack of a balanced diet is the cause? > The places in the world that have the best health are the ones that eat fewer animal products. Where's the evidence for that claim? If we look at the life expectancy for each country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expe... The US ranks at #30 out of 180 which is quite decent despite their huge consumption of animal and more importantly processed foods. The countries which are at the bottom are there not because they consume animal products but because they have poor living conditions and little to no health care available. Meanwhile Japan is at #1 and all kinds of meats including raw are a frequent part of their diet.
deleted 7y ago
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scandinavegan 7y ago
> We just don't know, and anyone that tells you they do know is either selling you something or, at best, telling you what worked for them. I read a great newspaper article ten or so years ago. The journalist visited a vegan and a person following LCHF (low carb high fat). Both said that their diet made them feel great, made them lose weight, gave them lots of energy, kept them free of illness, and so on. The journalist noted that they basically split the nutrition circle (I don't know if this is a world-wide thing, but it divides different food sources into pie slices) in half: the vegan eating the grain and vegetable parts and the LCHF person eating the animal parts. The article basically showed how good the human body is at making up for when you limit an omnivore diet. If you asked any of the two participants, they would say their parts of the nutrition circle were the healthy ones.
- GrzegorzWidla 7y ago
  I'm quite late but will still comment... While both high quality keto (grass fed, wild caught etc.) and high carb whole food plant based diet will make you feel great only one of those is sustainable for all people on the planet to do. If we put all cows we have currently in the world on pastures we'd have to use all land of North and South America combined and we would - even with all that land, removing Amazon and total destruction - only be able to feed 3 billion people. I've tried both of those diets for significantly long time. I feel good on both. High carb one is cheaper, foods are faster to prepare, it's easier to eat out (yes, if you're keto you won't get good, clean, unprocessed meat easily while a simple salad is available everywhere), animals get to live, environment gets to live - there are just too many benefits outside of your health alone. Keto is an egoistic diet.

modzu 7y ago

such epistemic issues apply to all domains of knowledge. also, anecdotal evidence, ie, "what worked for them", is still valid data, and should be valued as such

thomascgalvin 7y ago
> anecdotal evidence, ie, "what worked for them", is still valid data, and should be valued as such It's useful information, but it's also limited information. If Atkins worked for your buddy two cubes down, that might indicate that it's worth trying yourself, but it's less useful in terms of making, say, national level nutritional policy. Though I suppose in this case I'm more worried about lobbying than anecdotal data.

sridca 7y ago

Exactly. Sadly however some people would still prefer to believe WHO's authority and take their meat-causes-cancer factoid to be a fact. > Does a low-carb diet improve health outcomes? Or a vegan diet? We just don't know, and anyone that tells you they do know is either selling you something or, at best, telling you what worked for them. Yup; and the same applies to anyone looking to refute a diet they do not like. For example, a vegan asserting that the carnivore diet is unhealthy and vice versa.

vfc1 7y ago

We do know, all the evidence points in the direction that the western diet, high in animal products and processed foods is the number explanation for the rampant increase of cancer, diabetes and heart disease in the west. This argument is old: we don't know because the perfect experiment has not been conducted and never will and because the studies that we have don't say what we want to hear. If the news is bad, question the source and keep doing the same thing. This was what was done for decades with tobacco, for decades the validity of the argument that it causes cancer was questioned. Here we are in 2019 and still 15% of adults smoke in the US. And still, the perfect experiment was never done and never will. Take any population that is healthy, they move to the west and develop these illnesses. The places in the world that have the best health are the ones that eat fewer animal products. The Inuit that eat only meat and fish have rampant arteriosclerosis. People on the paleo diet have been found to have much higher levels of a biomarker linked to heart disease than people on a normal diet, for which cancer rates are increasing - https://www.sbs.com.au/news/study-links-paleo-diet-to-heart-disease https://www.sbs.com.au/news/study-links-paleo-diet-to-heart-... When a whole country stopped eating animal products for a year (during WW one) their health as a population massively increased. The list goes on and on, we have epidemiological studies, we have population studies, we know some of the mechanisms through which cancer is developed, we know that a plant-based diet reverses heart disease. But we still prefer to keep saying that we just don't know, because we don't like the news.

smarkov 7y ago
From the article you linked: > Eating more red meat under the Paleo diet paired with a lack of whole grains results in higher levels of a biomarker linked to heart disease WITH A LACK OF WHOLE GRAINS. Does that mean that red meat is the cause or that the lack of a balanced diet is the cause? > The places in the world that have the best health are the ones that eat fewer animal products. Where's the evidence for that claim? If we look at the life expectancy for each country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expe... The US ranks at #30 out of 180 which is quite decent despite their huge consumption of animal and more importantly processed foods. The countries which are at the bottom are there not because they consume animal products but because they have poor living conditions and little to no health care available. Meanwhile Japan is at #1 and all kinds of meats including raw are a frequent part of their diet.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

scandinavegan 7y ago

> We just don't know, and anyone that tells you they do know is either selling you something or, at best, telling you what worked for them. I read a great newspaper article ten or so years ago. The journalist visited a vegan and a person following LCHF (low carb high fat). Both said that their diet made them feel great, made them lose weight, gave them lots of energy, kept them free of illness, and so on. The journalist noted that they basically split the nutrition circle (I don't know if this is a world-wide thing, but it divides different food sources into pie slices) in half: the vegan eating the grain and vegetable parts and the LCHF person eating the animal parts. The article basically showed how good the human body is at making up for when you limit an omnivore diet. If you asked any of the two participants, they would say their parts of the nutrition circle were the healthy ones.

GrzegorzWidla 7y ago
I'm quite late but will still comment... While both high quality keto (grass fed, wild caught etc.) and high carb whole food plant based diet will make you feel great only one of those is sustainable for all people on the planet to do. If we put all cows we have currently in the world on pastures we'd have to use all land of North and South America combined and we would - even with all that land, removing Amazon and total destruction - only be able to feed 3 billion people. I've tried both of those diets for significantly long time. I feel good on both. High carb one is cheaper, foods are faster to prepare, it's easier to eat out (yes, if you're keto you won't get good, clean, unprocessed meat easily while a simple salad is available everywhere), animals get to live, environment gets to live - there are just too many benefits outside of your health alone. Keto is an egoistic diet.