11 ms·

Is Red Meat Healthy? Multiverse Analysis Has Lessons Beyond Meat

40 points by andromaton 2y ago

tomohawk 2y ago
One thing about these red meat studies is that they do not discern those who are on a carnivore diet (no plants - no alcohol, no sugar, no grains, etc) and those who have red meat as part of a mixed diet. Having been on a carnivore diet for a while, and seeing many medical problems resolve that had not resolved with many medical interventions by doctors, it would be great to see more studies take a look at this.
- dumbfool666 2y ago
  How do you get fiber?
  - tomohawk 2y ago
    My dogs have a carnivore diet and their poops are firm and regular. Much better than when they were on premium dog food. Their fur is fuller, they have more energy, and yet they are more at ease. It's an analogously similar situation with me. Haven't missed the fiber one bit. The transition takes a bit of planning as there are initial side effects since your body is used to digesting and getting energy from sugar instead of fat. This video is a good start. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3wzDWW1MdI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3wzDWW1MdI
monero-xmr 2y ago
Your body isn’t really digesting plants. It’s getting what nutritional value it can out of it and then pooping the rest out. Mostly it becomes fiber, which is good for you, but it is not going to provide real value like meat does. Meat is the key to a healthy diet.
- zeta0134 2y ago
  Doesn't this depend heavily on the plant? Lots of vegetarians seem to be able to put together a perfectly balanced diet with no meat whatsoever. (Seems like rice and beans are the key here. Mushrooms are also quite tasty, depending on whether your definition of "plant" extends to fungi.)
  - lm28469 2y ago
    Vegetarians can eat eggs, milk, yogurt, cheese, &c. It's extremely easy to hit all your macros and nutrients on a vegetarian diet Vegan diets are another story though
    - phyrex 2y ago
      Vegan is certainly harder but still completely feasible, especially after the initial learning period. I’ve been vegan for 20 years and it’s only ever really annoying when travelling abroad.
      - brightball 2y ago
        I watched the Stanford twin study that was made into a Netflix documentary and it was really interesting. It seemed like the sheer volume of food that vegans had to eat in order to avoid losing healthy muscle was very high. Participants really struggled with it.
        lukas099 2y ago
        Just use pea or soy protein powder.
        GeoAtreides 2y ago
        > It seemed like the sheer volume of food 30 ml of olive oil is about 300 calories. 50 grams of peanut butter is 250 calories. Edamame / tofu (soy) has about 18 g of proteins per 100g. Beans have about 17 g per 100g. Peanut butter has 25 g of proteins. Protein daily needs is 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight. I dunno boss, doesn't seem like a very high volume of food.
PaulHoule 2y ago
One of my favorite books is https://www.amazon.com/Crime-America-Cambridge-Studies-Criminology/dp/0521681480 https://www.amazon.com/Crime-America-Cambridge-Studies-Crimi... as it points out the limitations of the social sciences and generally why people don’t find science satisfying, particularly looking at it scientifically as opposed to “here is a paper I can use as a weapon to justify my dogma”. In that book, researchers analyze just about every theory of the crime drop and got inconclusive results. The one exception was a chapter which was not quantitative at all but rather spun the story the black people in NYC switched from cocaine and heroin to passing around a blunt, sipping from 40s, and having a chill time.
- rustcleaner 2y ago
  >... to passing around a blunt ... Hey, whatever it takes to get the sage herb descheduled.
  - gradus_ad 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - shrimp_emoji 2y ago
    Hey, IQ is 10 points lower in the West than in East Asia, but the West has much nicer societies.
DarkNova6 2y ago
The key sentence most are probably looking for is: > The median HR was 0.94 (IQR, 0.83-1.05) for the effect of red meat on all-cause mortality — ie, not significant. However, the article (and the study) are absolutely worth a read. Another main take-away is: > I hope you read this paper and think about it every time you read an observational study that finds a positive or negative association between two things. Ask: What if the researchers were as careful as Zeraatkar and colleagues and did multiple different analyses? Would the finding hold up to a series of plausible analytic choices?
- AwaAwa 2y ago
  This approach ought to have been codified as part of an oath, with associated repercussions for the breaking of, but instead that which makes for popular sound bites from talking heads will carry the day. What researchers chasing popular beliefs fail to realize is that once you chase popular opinion, your science and therefore you are suspect, not to mention the 'content' was never going to be as popular as the latest bowel movement of modern Ben-Hur. Aesop's fable on the Bat, the Birds and the Beasts comes to mind regarding the fall out of this approach.
belter 2y ago
For all that prefer their scientific communications to start with the conclusions: "Of the 48 analyses deemed statistically significant, 40 indicated that red meat consumption reduced early death and eight indicated that eating red meat led to higher mortality."
- amelius 2y ago
  Both can be true at the same time.
  - mattpallissard 2y ago
    > > They cannot both be right. > You know? You are also right.
- Scipio_Afri 2y ago
  So many things are lumped into red meat; highly processed meats with nitrates like hotdogs and organic grassfed beef both fit the definition. One is very clearly not healthy (due to nitrates) and the other has health benefits due to nutrients like creatine and b12 that can only be found in beef. I think if they could construct a study where red meat was more strictly defined and compared different types of red meat, that might eliminate some of this noise.
ofrzeta 2y ago
They should probably start with defining what "red meat" actually is. Personally I don't believe that fresh meat of various animals is unhealthy but I try to consume less to none of "red meat products", that is processed meat with nitrite curing salt.
- hackernoteng 2y ago
  lot of these "studies" have included "processed meats" not fresh meat...
Tade0 2y ago
There's red meat and Red Meat. Boars and pigs are closely related, but meat from the latter has twice the calories of the former - largely due to its extreme fat content. I had to lay off red meat due to typical sedentary lifestyle induced health issues, but I found that the problem isn't exactly in the species consumed, but in the ridiculous amount of fat that's present in factory farmed animals. On the flipside game meat is perfectly fine, even if expensive.
- hackernoteng 2y ago
  you can also buy leaner cuts of meat. for example flank steak, etc. stuff that needs marinated or slow cooked, and has less fat. also grass fed steaks tend to have less fat (they aren't force-fed corn and soy to fatten them up)
  - klyrs 2y ago
    Whaaaa? My favorite indulgence is grilling flank steak blue and slicing it cross-grain. You slow cook it? Doesn't it dry out?
    - fl0ki 2y ago
      Try sous vide. You pre-cook the meat without losing any of the water or fat because it's sealed, then you finish the outside with a pan or grill. My steak pipeline: * Buy uncut slabs of USDA Prime grade ribeye from your local butcher or wholesaler like Costco. If possible, avoid blade tenderized meat. * Individually hand-cut steaks of about a pound each. You quickly learn to eyeball this. * Individually vacuum seal them while sucking out as much moisture as possible. A FoodSaver or similar can do this cheap and easy. Buy bulk bag rolls from Costco, first-party bags are more expensive for no benefit, while pre-cut bags cost a lot to only save a few seconds. * Freeze them until needed. With the moisture and air gap removed, they basically become a slab of solid marble with a shiny finish. There will be 0 crystallization or freezer burn if you sealed them properly. You are now set for months of superb steak with minimal further fuss. * When needed, put one or more of these steak modules into a 137F sous vide for at least 2 hours. Season / fry / grill / etc from there as preferred.
zzzeek 2y ago
people who consume red meat are likely to be in higher income brackets hence have better access to healthcare and less stressful lives
- abecedarius 2y ago
  Do you know that? In western countries the stereotypical confounder on nutritional epidemiology is that people who follow official guidelines like "avoid red meat" also follow other ones like "don't smoke". And this bias would go with your higher income, the opposite of the correlation you give.
demondemidi 2y ago
This should be a banned topic. There’s never any insight just righteous posturing.
- beepbooptheory 2y ago
  Data science should be banned?
  - shrimp_emoji 2y ago
    It's all bullshit, but I don't think bullshit should be banned -- there'd be no content left!
  - demondemidi 2y ago
    No, articles about red meat. Gives the vegans and the manly men a platform to shout at each other.
  - OutOfHere 2y ago
    Well, in the case of this analysis, the authors creatively left out at least two important studies that show harm from red meat, namely PMID: 19620159 and PMID: 32011623. I don't know the full extent of their bias in study selection, but it's evident to me that it's a creative way of producing any desired conclusion.
- itsdrewmiller 2y ago
  I agree meat is not a topic that draws very interesting comments generally, but the article itself is unusually good. It's funny seeing all the uncited bold assertations on a post about how even many studies in combination are not necessarily strong evidence.
  - demondemidi 2y ago
    All depends how you feel about observational studies vs randomized trials. Key word = "feel".
hackernoteng 2y ago
All I know is I feel amazing eating lots of leaner red meat. The nutrient content is very high (B-vitamins, zinc, etc.) and hard to get elsewhere. I probably eat 5 lbs of red meat per week. Im in my 50s, fit, and have healthy bloodwork.
- MPSimmons 2y ago
  How much of that do you ascribe to genetics?
- notnullorvoid 2y ago
  I primarily eat vegetarian (eggs, and legumes for protein), but some meat every other day or so. I take supplements and ensure my diet is balanced. Something about meat and red meat in particular does make my body generally just feel significantly better though. More energy, clear headed, etc. I've thought it might be due to in part to high metabolism. My entire family is quite slender and generally have trouble gaining weight.
xchip 2y ago
TL;DR: "Zeraatkar and colleagues have shown that there are thousands of plausible ways to analyze the data, and this can lead to very different findings. In the specific question of red meat and mortality, their many analyses yielded a null result. "
ein0p 2y ago
Rejoice all ye faithful, the yearly flippening of whether red meat is good for you has arrived. Avail yourselves of steak before “scientific consensus” flips again a year from now.
OutOfHere 2y ago
Even unprocessed red meat increases the all-cause mortality risk by 3%. Refer to https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32011623/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32011623/ which states: > Intake of processed meat (adjusted HR, 1.03 [95% CI, 1.02-1.05]; adjusted ARD, 0.90% [95% CI, 0.43%-1.38%]) or unprocessed red meat (adjusted HR, 1.03 [95% CI, 1.01-1.05]; adjusted ARD, 0.76% [95% CI, 0.19%-1.33%]) was significantly associated with all-cause mortality.
- abecedarius 2y ago
  The paper we're discussing based its analysis on a bunch of published reports. Eyeballing its supplement Figure 1, about 4/5 of those reports gave a bottom line in the same direction as yours (increased mortality). But the OP paper arrived at a bottom line in the opposite direction. I haven't looked further at either of these papers; just saying that telling me there's another paper which agrees with 4/5 of the other papers is not actually much information, in itself.
  - OutOfHere 2y ago
    They're using a very unproven analysis approach, although it's their biased study selection that worries me more. You can prove anything you want if you creatively select mainly the studies that favor your desired conclusions. They didn't even use the 2020 study that I linked. They also didn't use a famous study from 2009 (PMID: 19620159) which showed harm. These are just the two that I could identify quickly.
    - abecedarius 2y ago
      You may well be right that they got there out of bias; I've only glanced at this. How'd this bias manifest in their choice of which studies to review? The 4/5 opposite that I mentioned points the other way. (Added: I wrote this before you added an example paper.) Of course their main point is supposed to be about finding ways to counter this effect of engineering desired results within academic standards. I agree that's a real thing and part of a huge problem.
andromaton 2y ago
I found this interesting because of its multiverse approach not because it's about red meat. I would have found it even more yet separately interesting if the median HR was 0.1 or 10.
wwarner 2y ago
"Multiverse Analysis" is a terrible name, that can only introduce confusion, even if it increases readership. This methodology is more about machine learning than it is about covering all possible worlds. I'm also suspicious of the entire approach. In order to compare two different methods of analysis, you have to do some kind of mapping or weighting or meta-analysis that tells you why comparing two numbers makes any sense at all. This result must be tautological, in the sense that every expected value and variance can be computed and compared to another of the thousands of methods employed, and when we pour in the data it has to fall within the expected ranges, otherwise we know we've made a mistake in the original calculation.

40 points by andromaton 2y ago

One thing about these red meat studies is that they do not discern those who are on a carnivore diet (no plants - no alcohol, no sugar, no grains, etc) and those who have red meat as part of a mixed diet. Having been on a carnivore diet for a while, and seeing many medical problems resolve that had not resolved with many medical interventions by doctors, it would be great to see more studies take a look at this.

dumbfool666 2y ago
How do you get fiber?
- tomohawk 2y ago
  My dogs have a carnivore diet and their poops are firm and regular. Much better than when they were on premium dog food. Their fur is fuller, they have more energy, and yet they are more at ease. It's an analogously similar situation with me. Haven't missed the fiber one bit. The transition takes a bit of planning as there are initial side effects since your body is used to digesting and getting energy from sugar instead of fat. This video is a good start. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3wzDWW1MdI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3wzDWW1MdI

monero-xmr 2y ago

Your body isn’t really digesting plants. It’s getting what nutritional value it can out of it and then pooping the rest out. Mostly it becomes fiber, which is good for you, but it is not going to provide real value like meat does. Meat is the key to a healthy diet.

zeta0134 2y ago
Doesn't this depend heavily on the plant? Lots of vegetarians seem to be able to put together a perfectly balanced diet with no meat whatsoever. (Seems like rice and beans are the key here. Mushrooms are also quite tasty, depending on whether your definition of "plant" extends to fungi.)
- lm28469 2y ago
  Vegetarians can eat eggs, milk, yogurt, cheese, &c. It's extremely easy to hit all your macros and nutrients on a vegetarian diet Vegan diets are another story though
  - phyrex 2y ago
    Vegan is certainly harder but still completely feasible, especially after the initial learning period. I’ve been vegan for 20 years and it’s only ever really annoying when travelling abroad.
    - brightball 2y ago
      I watched the Stanford twin study that was made into a Netflix documentary and it was really interesting. It seemed like the sheer volume of food that vegans had to eat in order to avoid losing healthy muscle was very high. Participants really struggled with it.
      - lukas099 2y ago
        Just use pea or soy protein powder.
      - GeoAtreides 2y ago
        > It seemed like the sheer volume of food 30 ml of olive oil is about 300 calories. 50 grams of peanut butter is 250 calories. Edamame / tofu (soy) has about 18 g of proteins per 100g. Beans have about 17 g per 100g. Peanut butter has 25 g of proteins. Protein daily needs is 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight. I dunno boss, doesn't seem like a very high volume of food.

PaulHoule 2y ago

One of my favorite books is https://www.amazon.com/Crime-America-Cambridge-Studies-Criminology/dp/0521681480 https://www.amazon.com/Crime-America-Cambridge-Studies-Crimi... as it points out the limitations of the social sciences and generally why people don’t find science satisfying, particularly looking at it scientifically as opposed to “here is a paper I can use as a weapon to justify my dogma”. In that book, researchers analyze just about every theory of the crime drop and got inconclusive results. The one exception was a chapter which was not quantitative at all but rather spun the story the black people in NYC switched from cocaine and heroin to passing around a blunt, sipping from 40s, and having a chill time.

rustcleaner 2y ago
>... to passing around a blunt ... Hey, whatever it takes to get the sage herb descheduled.
- gradus_ad 2y ago
  [flagged]
- shrimp_emoji 2y ago
  Hey, IQ is 10 points lower in the West than in East Asia, but the West has much nicer societies.

DarkNova6 2y ago

The key sentence most are probably looking for is: > The median HR was 0.94 (IQR, 0.83-1.05) for the effect of red meat on all-cause mortality — ie, not significant. However, the article (and the study) are absolutely worth a read. Another main take-away is: > I hope you read this paper and think about it every time you read an observational study that finds a positive or negative association between two things. Ask: What if the researchers were as careful as Zeraatkar and colleagues and did multiple different analyses? Would the finding hold up to a series of plausible analytic choices?

AwaAwa 2y ago
This approach ought to have been codified as part of an oath, with associated repercussions for the breaking of, but instead that which makes for popular sound bites from talking heads will carry the day. What researchers chasing popular beliefs fail to realize is that once you chase popular opinion, your science and therefore you are suspect, not to mention the 'content' was never going to be as popular as the latest bowel movement of modern Ben-Hur. Aesop's fable on the Bat, the Birds and the Beasts comes to mind regarding the fall out of this approach.

belter 2y ago

For all that prefer their scientific communications to start with the conclusions: "Of the 48 analyses deemed statistically significant, 40 indicated that red meat consumption reduced early death and eight indicated that eating red meat led to higher mortality."

amelius 2y ago
Both can be true at the same time.
- mattpallissard 2y ago
  > > They cannot both be right. > You know? You are also right.
Scipio_Afri 2y ago
So many things are lumped into red meat; highly processed meats with nitrates like hotdogs and organic grassfed beef both fit the definition. One is very clearly not healthy (due to nitrates) and the other has health benefits due to nutrients like creatine and b12 that can only be found in beef. I think if they could construct a study where red meat was more strictly defined and compared different types of red meat, that might eliminate some of this noise.

ofrzeta 2y ago

They should probably start with defining what "red meat" actually is. Personally I don't believe that fresh meat of various animals is unhealthy but I try to consume less to none of "red meat products", that is processed meat with nitrite curing salt.

hackernoteng 2y ago
lot of these "studies" have included "processed meats" not fresh meat...

Tade0 2y ago

There's red meat and Red Meat. Boars and pigs are closely related, but meat from the latter has twice the calories of the former - largely due to its extreme fat content. I had to lay off red meat due to typical sedentary lifestyle induced health issues, but I found that the problem isn't exactly in the species consumed, but in the ridiculous amount of fat that's present in factory farmed animals. On the flipside game meat is perfectly fine, even if expensive.

hackernoteng 2y ago
you can also buy leaner cuts of meat. for example flank steak, etc. stuff that needs marinated or slow cooked, and has less fat. also grass fed steaks tend to have less fat (they aren't force-fed corn and soy to fatten them up)
- klyrs 2y ago
  Whaaaa? My favorite indulgence is grilling flank steak blue and slicing it cross-grain. You slow cook it? Doesn't it dry out?
  - fl0ki 2y ago
    Try sous vide. You pre-cook the meat without losing any of the water or fat because it's sealed, then you finish the outside with a pan or grill. My steak pipeline: * Buy uncut slabs of USDA Prime grade ribeye from your local butcher or wholesaler like Costco. If possible, avoid blade tenderized meat. * Individually hand-cut steaks of about a pound each. You quickly learn to eyeball this. * Individually vacuum seal them while sucking out as much moisture as possible. A FoodSaver or similar can do this cheap and easy. Buy bulk bag rolls from Costco, first-party bags are more expensive for no benefit, while pre-cut bags cost a lot to only save a few seconds. * Freeze them until needed. With the moisture and air gap removed, they basically become a slab of solid marble with a shiny finish. There will be 0 crystallization or freezer burn if you sealed them properly. You are now set for months of superb steak with minimal further fuss. * When needed, put one or more of these steak modules into a 137F sous vide for at least 2 hours. Season / fry / grill / etc from there as preferred.

zzzeek 2y ago

people who consume red meat are likely to be in higher income brackets hence have better access to healthcare and less stressful lives

abecedarius 2y ago
Do you know that? In western countries the stereotypical confounder on nutritional epidemiology is that people who follow official guidelines like "avoid red meat" also follow other ones like "don't smoke". And this bias would go with your higher income, the opposite of the correlation you give.

demondemidi 2y ago

This should be a banned topic. There’s never any insight just righteous posturing.

beepbooptheory 2y ago
Data science should be banned?
- shrimp_emoji 2y ago
  It's all bullshit, but I don't think bullshit should be banned -- there'd be no content left!
- demondemidi 2y ago
  No, articles about red meat. Gives the vegans and the manly men a platform to shout at each other.
- OutOfHere 2y ago
  Well, in the case of this analysis, the authors creatively left out at least two important studies that show harm from red meat, namely PMID: 19620159 and PMID: 32011623. I don't know the full extent of their bias in study selection, but it's evident to me that it's a creative way of producing any desired conclusion.
itsdrewmiller 2y ago
I agree meat is not a topic that draws very interesting comments generally, but the article itself is unusually good. It's funny seeing all the uncited bold assertations on a post about how even many studies in combination are not necessarily strong evidence.
- demondemidi 2y ago
  All depends how you feel about observational studies vs randomized trials. Key word = "feel".

hackernoteng 2y ago

All I know is I feel amazing eating lots of leaner red meat. The nutrient content is very high (B-vitamins, zinc, etc.) and hard to get elsewhere. I probably eat 5 lbs of red meat per week. Im in my 50s, fit, and have healthy bloodwork.

MPSimmons 2y ago
How much of that do you ascribe to genetics?
notnullorvoid 2y ago
I primarily eat vegetarian (eggs, and legumes for protein), but some meat every other day or so. I take supplements and ensure my diet is balanced. Something about meat and red meat in particular does make my body generally just feel significantly better though. More energy, clear headed, etc. I've thought it might be due to in part to high metabolism. My entire family is quite slender and generally have trouble gaining weight.

xchip 2y ago

TL;DR: "Zeraatkar and colleagues have shown that there are thousands of plausible ways to analyze the data, and this can lead to very different findings. In the specific question of red meat and mortality, their many analyses yielded a null result. "

ein0p 2y ago

Rejoice all ye faithful, the yearly flippening of whether red meat is good for you has arrived. Avail yourselves of steak before “scientific consensus” flips again a year from now.

OutOfHere 2y ago

Even unprocessed red meat increases the all-cause mortality risk by 3%. Refer to https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32011623/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32011623/ which states: > Intake of processed meat (adjusted HR, 1.03 [95% CI, 1.02-1.05]; adjusted ARD, 0.90% [95% CI, 0.43%-1.38%]) or unprocessed red meat (adjusted HR, 1.03 [95% CI, 1.01-1.05]; adjusted ARD, 0.76% [95% CI, 0.19%-1.33%]) was significantly associated with all-cause mortality.

abecedarius 2y ago
The paper we're discussing based its analysis on a bunch of published reports. Eyeballing its supplement Figure 1, about 4/5 of those reports gave a bottom line in the same direction as yours (increased mortality). But the OP paper arrived at a bottom line in the opposite direction. I haven't looked further at either of these papers; just saying that telling me there's another paper which agrees with 4/5 of the other papers is not actually much information, in itself.
- OutOfHere 2y ago
  They're using a very unproven analysis approach, although it's their biased study selection that worries me more. You can prove anything you want if you creatively select mainly the studies that favor your desired conclusions. They didn't even use the 2020 study that I linked. They also didn't use a famous study from 2009 (PMID: 19620159) which showed harm. These are just the two that I could identify quickly.
  - abecedarius 2y ago
    You may well be right that they got there out of bias; I've only glanced at this. How'd this bias manifest in their choice of which studies to review? The 4/5 opposite that I mentioned points the other way. (Added: I wrote this before you added an example paper.) Of course their main point is supposed to be about finding ways to counter this effect of engineering desired results within academic standards. I agree that's a real thing and part of a huge problem.

andromaton 2y ago

I found this interesting because of its multiverse approach not because it's about red meat. I would have found it even more yet separately interesting if the median HR was 0.1 or 10.

wwarner 2y ago

"Multiverse Analysis" is a terrible name, that can only introduce confusion, even if it increases readership. This methodology is more about machine learning than it is about covering all possible worlds. I'm also suspicious of the entire approach. In order to compare two different methods of analysis, you have to do some kind of mapping or weighting or meta-analysis that tells you why comparing two numbers makes any sense at all. This result must be tautological, in the sense that every expected value and variance can be computed and compared to another of the thousands of methods employed, and when we pour in the data it has to fall within the expected ranges, otherwise we know we've made a mistake in the original calculation.