12 ms·

Habitually Skipping Breakfast Is Associated with the Risk of GI Cancers

66 points by sbmthakur 3y ago

dwd 3y ago
Does skipping breakfast correlate with a lower daily intake of dietary fiber?
singularity2001 3y ago
Good that they say 'associated' because causality is non-trivial to establish, at least given the current state of math frameworks.
darth_avocado 3y ago
But I thought intermittent fasting was the way to go?
- onetimeuse92304 3y ago
  I am pretty sure it still is. I used it to lose 75 pounds last year. I am certain even if there was an increased risk of GI cancer (which I don't believe there is, it only shows correlation and no causation), it still is well offset by my improved health.
fbdab103 3y ago
So we are now off of fasting? Not that I keep up with the (largely junk) nutritional studies, but this blurb surprised me: >...In recent years, breakfast skipping has been proven to be associated with obesity,9 impaired glucose metabolism,10 cardiovascular disease,11 impaired cognitive function,12 and even cancer.13 Recently, a prospective study conducted in China found that habitually skipping breakfast is associated with chronic inflammation, as assessed by the C-reactive protein (CRP) concentration.14 Was this funded by the Chinese-Kellogg equivalent?
- generalizations 3y ago
  > breakfast skipping has been proven to be associated with obesity Since there’s definitely a cohort that skips breakfast for health reasons, and has a healthy weight as a result, I’d wonder if the data is multimodal and there’s some other group that skips breakfast and is unhealthy that’s overshadowing the heathy modal.
  - tired_and_awake 3y ago
    I know someone that never eats breakfast. He does however eat a very big dinner and continue to eat late into the night. Skipping breakfast is not necessarily a fasting technique, but a consequence of over eating.
    - tomjakubowski 3y ago
      Interesting, when I eat a larger number of smaller meals I do tend to be hungrier in the mornings.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      Or it’s a consequence of just not feeling like a major meal in the morning. A lot of Europeans eat a pretty light continental breakfast down to a croissant and an expresso. Not everything has to be a moral failing.
    - balfirevic 3y ago
      That's what I do, but I'm not over eating (just eating late) and I'm at healthy weight. I also don't intentionally fast, I just eat when I feel like it.
  - loeg 3y ago
    For example smoking, which is known to be unhealthy, has a relatively high correlation with skipping breakfast. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19638728/#:~:text=Skipping%20breakfast%20was%20more%20prevalent,%25CI%201.50%2D6.39 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19638728/#:~:text=Skipping%2...).
- rypskar 3y ago
  >>So we are now off of fasting? Why not start the day with breakfast and not eat late in the evenings? Eating late is also often linked to poor sleep
  - fbdab103 3y ago
    False dichotomy. Fasting does not mean you have to eat up until your final waking moments. I do not consider my lifestyle fasting, though I rarely eat breakfast and typically have dinner 6-7pm. Which is ~6 hours before I go to bed.
canjobear 3y ago
How many random correlations did they try before they found this one?
zengid 3y ago
I'm scanning through the article but I cant find where they define what "breakfast" means in terms of portion size or caloric intake?
- fatfingerd 3y ago
  AFAICT it's a survey based study so there is no definition. It's whatever the participant thinks it means. Given the esophageal cancer, I'm going to guess that most participants considered a hot drink to be skipping breakfast as a drink isn't food whether or not it has calories.
andyjohnson0 3y ago
Perhaps I missed it, but I couldn't see the bit where they controlled for other risk factors. So they basically just seem to be reporting a correlation. Or is there more to this?
- 876978095789789 3y ago
  > In the mediation effect analyses, BMI, CRP, and TyG (fasting triglyceride-glucose) index did not mediate the association between breakfast frequency and the risk of GI cancer incidence (all P for mediation effect > 0.05). Meshes with all of the other studies that show no benefit to TRF or IF unrelated to weight-loss (which can be achieved without TRF/IF), and the studies showing harm, like this one: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9182756/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9182756/ and this one: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/368542960_Insulin_resistance_after_a_3-day_fast_is_associated_with_an_increased_capacity_of_skeletal_muscle_to_oxidize_lipids https://www.researchgate.net/publication/368542960_Insulin_r...
missingrib 3y ago
Can someone explain to me what "Is Associated" means in this context? I know there are always comments about correlation/causation here, but I genuinely don't have enough of a stats background to actually understand what they are claiming. If they have tried to control for confounding variables (people who skip breakfast are generally more unhealthy/more likely to be drug users/more likely to smoke, etc), what are the methods they use? Are they reliable? I find myself thinking about making serious lifestyle changes in response to these articles, but many of them contradict each other.
- fbdab103 3y ago
  Associated typically means, "we saw these two things together". Maybe there is an underlying connection, but it at least looked funny (and/or enough to get a paper out the door). Which is honestly about the best you can get from human behavior. Unlike rats, you cannot lock up humans for their lifetime, force-feeding them a diet of gruel for trial A meanwhile trial B gets a diet of corn-syrup and beer. Better studies will try to subtract out meaningful differences (eg smokers vs non-smokers), but there is only so much that can be done when humans lie, cheat, steal, and misremember their behavior on questionnaires they fill out years after the fact.
- kadoban 3y ago
  "is associated" means correlation, usually after whatever attempt (or no attempt, you have to read quite closely to tell) to account for confounding variables. Even if they do make an attempt to control for such things, it's often useless. There's only so much you can do with limited data and if you're not of exceedingly high character, there's a lot of ways to cheat intentionally or accidentally. So, this kind of result means very little. It _may_ be a thing that a better study could be based on, that's about it. I personally would not be making changes in my life based on this type of result.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jehb 3y ago
I'd love to see the results parsed by reason for skipping breakfast. I used to intentionally skip breakfast as a part of an intermittent fasting routing. I wasn't particularly strict about it, and I didn't really buy into the ketogenesis arguments. But it was a calorie restriction scheme that worked for my lifestyle. Fast forward a few years, and while I still miss breakfast a lot, I find now it's because of work stress. It seems like I can't ever get out of bed in the morning without being immediately greeted by some "emergency" that popped up overnight, and jumping into that before I've really had any opportunity to start the day on my own terms. I can't help but feel like the latter is going to be a lot more correlated with health problems down the road than the former.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  I skip breakfast because when I wake up, I'm simply not ready to eat at all. I can force myself to eat breakfast, but it's unpleasant and makes me feel worse for the rest of the day. So I skip it. I do have a mid-morning snack, though.
- DoreenMichele 3y ago
  I like your line of thinking. The mention of liver cancer makes me wonder if it's a hydration issue. Fasting intentionally shouldn't be correlated with dehydration, but missing breakfast due to crisis may mean you are skipping hydration and not making up for it.
  - killjoywashere 3y ago
    How would hydration predispose to liver cancer?
    - DoreenMichele 3y ago
      It shouldn't, but dehydration might?
      - pama 3y ago
m3kw9 3y ago
Could skipping breakfast means the person eats unhealthily in general since skipping breakfast is associated with bad health behaviour anyways. What if that person skips breakfast but heats great in other meals, this is what they should test
- fbdab103 3y ago
  >...since skipping breakfast is associated with bad health behaviour anyways I have never heard this. In America, if someone says they are eating breakfast, I assume they are eating junk: bagels, McMuffins, cereal bars, etc. Not muesli.
  - tomjakubowski 3y ago
    what makes a bagel "junk"? or a McMuffin for that matter. they're both great on macros
- loeg 3y ago
  There are all kinds of possible confounders or 3rd variables here, yes. This is more or less just a correlation -- it should not be read as evidence of causation.
bannedbybros 3y ago
[dead]
smeej 3y ago
Having GI issues that end up becoming cancerous is also associated with not feeling like eating in the morning because you have GI issues. N=1 here, but I have IBD and immediate family history of rectal cancer, and I definitely feel the worst in the mornings. That kind of pain is strongly correlated with not wanting to put food in my mouth.
- spondylosaurus 3y ago
  My immediate thought as well. We already know that IBD (particularly unchecked IBD) carries an enormous risk of colorectal cancer... and my IBD is also consistently worse in the morning. Sometimes I skip breakfast when I have an early obligation and don't have time to play games with my gut.
rambojohnson 3y ago
skipping breakfast causes cancer? linked to obesity even? Did the study establish a causal relationship, or is it merely observing a correlation? A longitudinal study that tracks participants over time may provide stronger evidence than a cross-sectional study. Were other factors (e.g., smoking, exercise, diet, etc.) controlled for in the study? sounds like bullshit.
killjoywashere 3y ago
Looking at Table 1, I wonder if this is an effect of increased variance in smaller populations? Table 2 kind of feels like it's trending that way. Also, apparently in 2014 there was an article describing Xi Jinping's lifestyle, which reported he ate breakfast daily before dawn. This study started in 2014. Probably a total coincidence, but ... https://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-glimpse-president-xi-china-20141027-story.html https://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-glimpse-president-x...
onetimeuse92304 3y ago
Please, mind, this is only showing correlation. No cause/effect relation. It might be that people who have GI problems are more likely to skip breakfast. Or there might be something else that causes both. Be careful when reading studies...
- nextos 3y ago
  Exactly. I have reviewed a few articles for Nature Medicine, Nature Communications, and twice for Nature. In many cases, I found really absurd causal claims, plus a total ignorance of confounding and causal inference techniques. It is shocking that many researchers in biology and medicine have never heard about many of the topics surveyed in e.g. Chapter 36 of Kevin Murphy's second book [1]. [1] https://probml.github.io/pml-book/book2.html https://probml.github.io/pml-book/book2.html
  - liquidpele 3y ago
    “Meta analysis” is the new snake oil.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - 4death4 3y ago
    Even with confounding and causal inference techniques, I will never be convinced by studies that aren't double-blind RCTs or studies that show a direct causal relationship. The reason is that the set of human behavior is so fast and unfathomably complicated. Any two aspects of life are surely correlated by many factors that are influenced by lifestyle.
    - nextos 3y ago
      For ethical reasons, it is not possible to perform some kinds of research with double-blind RCTs. Besides, large biobanks provide a wealth of observational data which can be explored using causal inference. One can always use a RCT on promising hypotheses.
jeffbee 3y ago
The study is based on self-reported responses to “How many days do you generally consume breakfast in a typical week?” (in Chinese) ... it's an interesting question that clearly must have a customary/social component. As an annoying pedant I'd be compelled to answer "every day" based on the definition of breakfast as the first meal of the day. I don't know how the term or the custom translates to coal miners of eastern Tangshan province, though.
pharmakom 3y ago
Is a morning cigarette skipping breakfast?
sudhirj 3y ago
When I look at paper titles I like to switch the words around to see if the paper is talking about correlation or causation. If the title was changed to "People with high GI cancer risk tend to habitually skip breakfast" does anything need to change in the paper?
SCSIfloppy 3y ago
[flagged]
moltar 3y ago
Impossible to skip breakfast unless you never eat. Breakfast is simply the first meal of the day when you break fasted state.
- mensetmanusman 3y ago
  My dinner is breakfast then!
- imartin2k 3y ago
  Relevant comment. I was thinking “what is breakfast?”. In my case, usually, I eat my first meal of the day around 3-4 hrs after waking up. I’m not hungry before. Does that mean I’m skipping breakfast?
- sunnybeetroot 3y ago
  Whilst I can’t see the full paper, a lot of the time people refer to breakfast as a meal before lunch time (before midday), not as the first meal after you break a fasted state.
876978095789789 3y ago
ITT: cope. Even if you still believe there are benefits to TRF that aren't just due to losing weight (and note that TRF causes a disproportionate amount of muscle-loss, not fat-loss, when used as a weight-loss tool: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2771095 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...), Satchin Panda, arguably the foremost researcher in this field, has been unequivocal that early TRF is much worse than late TRF (i.e., skipping breakfast instead of skipping dinner) for metabolic health, probably due to circadian misalignment, so I don't see why you all find this result so surprising. Apparently none of you have heard of Dr. Panda, which means you've done barely any research into any of this, and yet you're still smugly confident that TRF/IF are safe and healthy? Enough to nit-pick the studies saying otherwise, and downvote and flag those posting them?

66 points by sbmthakur 3y ago

dwd 3y ago

Does skipping breakfast correlate with a lower daily intake of dietary fiber?

singularity2001 3y ago

Good that they say 'associated' because causality is non-trivial to establish, at least given the current state of math frameworks.

darth_avocado 3y ago

But I thought intermittent fasting was the way to go?

onetimeuse92304 3y ago
I am pretty sure it still is. I used it to lose 75 pounds last year. I am certain even if there was an increased risk of GI cancer (which I don't believe there is, it only shows correlation and no causation), it still is well offset by my improved health.

fbdab103 3y ago

So we are now off of fasting? Not that I keep up with the (largely junk) nutritional studies, but this blurb surprised me: >...In recent years, breakfast skipping has been proven to be associated with obesity,9 impaired glucose metabolism,10 cardiovascular disease,11 impaired cognitive function,12 and even cancer.13 Recently, a prospective study conducted in China found that habitually skipping breakfast is associated with chronic inflammation, as assessed by the C-reactive protein (CRP) concentration.14 Was this funded by the Chinese-Kellogg equivalent?

generalizations 3y ago
> breakfast skipping has been proven to be associated with obesity Since there’s definitely a cohort that skips breakfast for health reasons, and has a healthy weight as a result, I’d wonder if the data is multimodal and there’s some other group that skips breakfast and is unhealthy that’s overshadowing the heathy modal.
- tired_and_awake 3y ago
  I know someone that never eats breakfast. He does however eat a very big dinner and continue to eat late into the night. Skipping breakfast is not necessarily a fasting technique, but a consequence of over eating.
  - tomjakubowski 3y ago
    Interesting, when I eat a larger number of smaller meals I do tend to be hungrier in the mornings.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    Or it’s a consequence of just not feeling like a major meal in the morning. A lot of Europeans eat a pretty light continental breakfast down to a croissant and an expresso. Not everything has to be a moral failing.
  - balfirevic 3y ago
    That's what I do, but I'm not over eating (just eating late) and I'm at healthy weight. I also don't intentionally fast, I just eat when I feel like it.
- loeg 3y ago
  For example smoking, which is known to be unhealthy, has a relatively high correlation with skipping breakfast. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19638728/#:~:text=Skipping%20breakfast%20was%20more%20prevalent,%25CI%201.50%2D6.39 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19638728/#:~:text=Skipping%2...).
rypskar 3y ago
>>So we are now off of fasting? Why not start the day with breakfast and not eat late in the evenings? Eating late is also often linked to poor sleep
- fbdab103 3y ago
  False dichotomy. Fasting does not mean you have to eat up until your final waking moments. I do not consider my lifestyle fasting, though I rarely eat breakfast and typically have dinner 6-7pm. Which is ~6 hours before I go to bed.

canjobear 3y ago

How many random correlations did they try before they found this one?

zengid 3y ago

I'm scanning through the article but I cant find where they define what "breakfast" means in terms of portion size or caloric intake?

fatfingerd 3y ago
AFAICT it's a survey based study so there is no definition. It's whatever the participant thinks it means. Given the esophageal cancer, I'm going to guess that most participants considered a hot drink to be skipping breakfast as a drink isn't food whether or not it has calories.

andyjohnson0 3y ago

Perhaps I missed it, but I couldn't see the bit where they controlled for other risk factors. So they basically just seem to be reporting a correlation. Or is there more to this?

876978095789789 3y ago
> In the mediation effect analyses, BMI, CRP, and TyG (fasting triglyceride-glucose) index did not mediate the association between breakfast frequency and the risk of GI cancer incidence (all P for mediation effect > 0.05). Meshes with all of the other studies that show no benefit to TRF or IF unrelated to weight-loss (which can be achieved without TRF/IF), and the studies showing harm, like this one: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9182756/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9182756/ and this one: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/368542960_Insulin_resistance_after_a_3-day_fast_is_associated_with_an_increased_capacity_of_skeletal_muscle_to_oxidize_lipids https://www.researchgate.net/publication/368542960_Insulin_r...

missingrib 3y ago

Can someone explain to me what "Is Associated" means in this context? I know there are always comments about correlation/causation here, but I genuinely don't have enough of a stats background to actually understand what they are claiming. If they have tried to control for confounding variables (people who skip breakfast are generally more unhealthy/more likely to be drug users/more likely to smoke, etc), what are the methods they use? Are they reliable? I find myself thinking about making serious lifestyle changes in response to these articles, but many of them contradict each other.

fbdab103 3y ago
Associated typically means, "we saw these two things together". Maybe there is an underlying connection, but it at least looked funny (and/or enough to get a paper out the door). Which is honestly about the best you can get from human behavior. Unlike rats, you cannot lock up humans for their lifetime, force-feeding them a diet of gruel for trial A meanwhile trial B gets a diet of corn-syrup and beer. Better studies will try to subtract out meaningful differences (eg smokers vs non-smokers), but there is only so much that can be done when humans lie, cheat, steal, and misremember their behavior on questionnaires they fill out years after the fact.
kadoban 3y ago
"is associated" means correlation, usually after whatever attempt (or no attempt, you have to read quite closely to tell) to account for confounding variables. Even if they do make an attempt to control for such things, it's often useless. There's only so much you can do with limited data and if you're not of exceedingly high character, there's a lot of ways to cheat intentionally or accidentally. So, this kind of result means very little. It _may_ be a thing that a better study could be based on, that's about it. I personally would not be making changes in my life based on this type of result.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

jehb 3y ago

I'd love to see the results parsed by reason for skipping breakfast. I used to intentionally skip breakfast as a part of an intermittent fasting routing. I wasn't particularly strict about it, and I didn't really buy into the ketogenesis arguments. But it was a calorie restriction scheme that worked for my lifestyle. Fast forward a few years, and while I still miss breakfast a lot, I find now it's because of work stress. It seems like I can't ever get out of bed in the morning without being immediately greeted by some "emergency" that popped up overnight, and jumping into that before I've really had any opportunity to start the day on my own terms. I can't help but feel like the latter is going to be a lot more correlated with health problems down the road than the former.

JohnFen 3y ago
I skip breakfast because when I wake up, I'm simply not ready to eat at all. I can force myself to eat breakfast, but it's unpleasant and makes me feel worse for the rest of the day. So I skip it. I do have a mid-morning snack, though.
DoreenMichele 3y ago
I like your line of thinking. The mention of liver cancer makes me wonder if it's a hydration issue. Fasting intentionally shouldn't be correlated with dehydration, but missing breakfast due to crisis may mean you are skipping hydration and not making up for it.
- killjoywashere 3y ago
  How would hydration predispose to liver cancer?
  - DoreenMichele 3y ago
    It shouldn't, but dehydration might?
    - pama 3y ago

m3kw9 3y ago

Could skipping breakfast means the person eats unhealthily in general since skipping breakfast is associated with bad health behaviour anyways. What if that person skips breakfast but heats great in other meals, this is what they should test

fbdab103 3y ago
>...since skipping breakfast is associated with bad health behaviour anyways I have never heard this. In America, if someone says they are eating breakfast, I assume they are eating junk: bagels, McMuffins, cereal bars, etc. Not muesli.
- tomjakubowski 3y ago
  what makes a bagel "junk"? or a McMuffin for that matter. they're both great on macros
loeg 3y ago
There are all kinds of possible confounders or 3rd variables here, yes. This is more or less just a correlation -- it should not be read as evidence of causation.

bannedbybros 3y ago

[dead]

smeej 3y ago

Having GI issues that end up becoming cancerous is also associated with not feeling like eating in the morning because you have GI issues. N=1 here, but I have IBD and immediate family history of rectal cancer, and I definitely feel the worst in the mornings. That kind of pain is strongly correlated with not wanting to put food in my mouth.

spondylosaurus 3y ago
My immediate thought as well. We already know that IBD (particularly unchecked IBD) carries an enormous risk of colorectal cancer... and my IBD is also consistently worse in the morning. Sometimes I skip breakfast when I have an early obligation and don't have time to play games with my gut.

rambojohnson 3y ago

skipping breakfast causes cancer? linked to obesity even? Did the study establish a causal relationship, or is it merely observing a correlation? A longitudinal study that tracks participants over time may provide stronger evidence than a cross-sectional study. Were other factors (e.g., smoking, exercise, diet, etc.) controlled for in the study? sounds like bullshit.

killjoywashere 3y ago

Looking at Table 1, I wonder if this is an effect of increased variance in smaller populations? Table 2 kind of feels like it's trending that way. Also, apparently in 2014 there was an article describing Xi Jinping's lifestyle, which reported he ate breakfast daily before dawn. This study started in 2014. Probably a total coincidence, but ... https://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-glimpse-president-xi-china-20141027-story.html https://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-glimpse-president-x...

onetimeuse92304 3y ago

Please, mind, this is only showing correlation. No cause/effect relation. It might be that people who have GI problems are more likely to skip breakfast. Or there might be something else that causes both. Be careful when reading studies...

nextos 3y ago
Exactly. I have reviewed a few articles for Nature Medicine, Nature Communications, and twice for Nature. In many cases, I found really absurd causal claims, plus a total ignorance of confounding and causal inference techniques. It is shocking that many researchers in biology and medicine have never heard about many of the topics surveyed in e.g. Chapter 36 of Kevin Murphy's second book [1]. [1] https://probml.github.io/pml-book/book2.html https://probml.github.io/pml-book/book2.html
- liquidpele 3y ago
  “Meta analysis” is the new snake oil.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- 4death4 3y ago
  Even with confounding and causal inference techniques, I will never be convinced by studies that aren't double-blind RCTs or studies that show a direct causal relationship. The reason is that the set of human behavior is so fast and unfathomably complicated. Any two aspects of life are surely correlated by many factors that are influenced by lifestyle.
  - nextos 3y ago
    For ethical reasons, it is not possible to perform some kinds of research with double-blind RCTs. Besides, large biobanks provide a wealth of observational data which can be explored using causal inference. One can always use a RCT on promising hypotheses.

jeffbee 3y ago

The study is based on self-reported responses to “How many days do you generally consume breakfast in a typical week?” (in Chinese) ... it's an interesting question that clearly must have a customary/social component. As an annoying pedant I'd be compelled to answer "every day" based on the definition of breakfast as the first meal of the day. I don't know how the term or the custom translates to coal miners of eastern Tangshan province, though.

pharmakom 3y ago

Is a morning cigarette skipping breakfast?

sudhirj 3y ago

When I look at paper titles I like to switch the words around to see if the paper is talking about correlation or causation. If the title was changed to "People with high GI cancer risk tend to habitually skip breakfast" does anything need to change in the paper?

SCSIfloppy 3y ago

[flagged]

moltar 3y ago

Impossible to skip breakfast unless you never eat. Breakfast is simply the first meal of the day when you break fasted state.

mensetmanusman 3y ago
My dinner is breakfast then!
imartin2k 3y ago
Relevant comment. I was thinking “what is breakfast?”. In my case, usually, I eat my first meal of the day around 3-4 hrs after waking up. I’m not hungry before. Does that mean I’m skipping breakfast?
sunnybeetroot 3y ago
Whilst I can’t see the full paper, a lot of the time people refer to breakfast as a meal before lunch time (before midday), not as the first meal after you break a fasted state.

876978095789789 3y ago

ITT: cope. Even if you still believe there are benefits to TRF that aren't just due to losing weight (and note that TRF causes a disproportionate amount of muscle-loss, not fat-loss, when used as a weight-loss tool: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2771095 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...), Satchin Panda, arguably the foremost researcher in this field, has been unequivocal that early TRF is much worse than late TRF (i.e., skipping breakfast instead of skipping dinner) for metabolic health, probably due to circadian misalignment, so I don't see why you all find this result so surprising. Apparently none of you have heard of Dr. Panda, which means you've done barely any research into any of this, and yet you're still smugly confident that TRF/IF are safe and healthy? Enough to nit-pick the studies saying otherwise, and downvote and flag those posting them?