3 ms·

I swear if it weren't for the many institutional problems plaguing academia including publish or perish in particular, shoddy bullshit studies like this would n

I swear if it weren't for the many institutional problems plaguing academia including publish or perish in particular, shoddy bullshit studies like this would never see the light of day. Even bending over backwards they were barely able to show a tiny correlation from surveys. Meat consumption was the evolutionary step that enabled primates to develop and maintain biologically expensive brains that made them human. There unquestionably had to have been a strong evolutionary pressure to adapt completely to meat eating. This is just data dredging in pursuit of justification for some kind of weird anti-meat sentiment which has been growing for decades, when the real culprit is already known - it's the sugars that have most likely been killing all of us, although to be honest if the same "gold standard" methods were applied to sugar related studies I'd question those as well. The way the media continues to sensationalize these correlative, broken studies is shameful.

medsiri 7y ago
Perhaps there could be a strong evolutionary pressure to adapt to meat eating AND it could cause a slight increase in certain illnesses if consumed regularly by certain populations? If we look at blue zones where people live the longest, one commonality is 95% of their diets are vegetables, grains, and legumes, with limited meat consumption. At the end of the day it comes down to goals and priorities. If performance is a priority, I think meat consumption can be a good thing. If longevity is a priority, limiting meat consumption is probably a good thing. We have to take a nuanced approach. Nutrition science is difficult, and different populations naturally respond in different ways to a variety of diets. Some will naturally thrive on meat heavy diets while others will not.
- njarboe 7y ago
  Not just certain populations, but each individual is likely to have different nutritional needs for different desired outcomes. Hard to study that though.
- nwallin 7y ago
  re: blue zones. They also don't smoke, drink, and do regularly exercise. And these things are usually prescribed by their religion. As soon as you start accounting for confounding variables, correlations between eating meat and bad health outcomes drop significantly. And you're left unable to determine whether it's observing the Sabbath on Saturday or not eating meat that makes them live longer.
- allovernow 7y ago
  >If longevity is a priority, limiting meat consumption is probably a good thing But 90% of people don't seem to understand that literally all studies on meat are of this quality and there's zero reliable evidence that red meat is actually harmful. However there is reason for bias considering meat gets a bad rap for being environmentally unfriendly and cruel, although both of those things can be solved with modern technology. But neither are valid reasons to dig for dirt with an agenda. That's bad science and studies like these are potentially the results. Not to accuse the authors specifically, but the bias is very likely influencing the direction of research in the field.

medsiri 7y ago

Perhaps there could be a strong evolutionary pressure to adapt to meat eating AND it could cause a slight increase in certain illnesses if consumed regularly by certain populations? If we look at blue zones where people live the longest, one commonality is 95% of their diets are vegetables, grains, and legumes, with limited meat consumption. At the end of the day it comes down to goals and priorities. If performance is a priority, I think meat consumption can be a good thing. If longevity is a priority, limiting meat consumption is probably a good thing. We have to take a nuanced approach. Nutrition science is difficult, and different populations naturally respond in different ways to a variety of diets. Some will naturally thrive on meat heavy diets while others will not.

njarboe 7y ago
Not just certain populations, but each individual is likely to have different nutritional needs for different desired outcomes. Hard to study that though.
nwallin 7y ago
re: blue zones. They also don't smoke, drink, and do regularly exercise. And these things are usually prescribed by their religion. As soon as you start accounting for confounding variables, correlations between eating meat and bad health outcomes drop significantly. And you're left unable to determine whether it's observing the Sabbath on Saturday or not eating meat that makes them live longer.
allovernow 7y ago
>If longevity is a priority, limiting meat consumption is probably a good thing But 90% of people don't seem to understand that literally all studies on meat are of this quality and there's zero reliable evidence that red meat is actually harmful. However there is reason for bias considering meat gets a bad rap for being environmentally unfriendly and cruel, although both of those things can be solved with modern technology. But neither are valid reasons to dig for dirt with an agenda. That's bad science and studies like these are potentially the results. Not to accuse the authors specifically, but the bias is very likely influencing the direction of research in the field.