> why do you think this matters. their study studies the relation between protein and longevity. The article states: Teasing out the health effects of ind

> why do you think this matters. their study studies the relation between protein and longevity. The article states: Teasing out the health effects of individual nutrients is notoriously difficult. The apparently harmful effects of a high-protein diet might be down to one or more other substances in meat, or driven by lifestyle factors that are more common in regular red meat eaters versus vegetarians. Other factors can skew results too: a person on the study who got ill might have gone off their food, and seen a proportional rise in the amount of calories they get from protein. In that case, it would be the illness driving the diet, not the other way round. A lot of people in the US who eat an animal protein rich diet get their protein from red meat instead of say white meat or seafood. There are huge differences between red meat and white meat, and even bigger differences between red/white meat and seafood. And a lot Americans who consume red meat prepare it in a way that are known to form heterocyclic amines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are known to cause cancer in animals. Maybe the type of animal protein doesn't matter but if you don't look specifically at these issues you're apt to reach conclusions that are way too broad (ie animal proteins are bad). I don't think it's sensible to sound the alarm about animal protein before you have a study that factors for which animal proteins are being consumed. One interesting thing to ponder in light of this study is the Okinawa region of Japan. It has a very high age expectancy (one of the highest in the world) and I believe a much higher than average protein intake, a lot of which comes from seafood. So I think it's folly to just look at protein intake without looking at the source of the protein and the overall composition of the diet. Things are usually more complex than we'd like them to be.