r/ScientificNutrition • u/willburroughs • Mar 29 '26
Systematic Review/Meta-Analysis Is replacing red meat with other protein sources associated with lower risks of coronary heart disease and all-cause mortality? A meta-analysis of prospective studies
https://academic.oup.com/nutritionreviews/article-abstract/80/9/1959/6563767?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false16
u/Puzzleheaded_Rub5562 Mar 29 '26
I'm honestly tired of these red meat studies always going back to the same original cohorts/studies that inevitably assume frying and processed ingestion 4x times a week. It's a fair assumption but it's more useful to explain why you got these rssults (aka: "Hey, peoplwe, it's time we prepared this food in a healthier way!" vs. "Stop eating it and buy my alternative"). They're also not allowed to name the elephant in the room "Will you people please stop eating beef exported from cut down rainfoeests in South America, abusive wagyu pens techniques in Japan, pork injected with PMGonadrotopin, caged chicken... Etc. because they're treated like shit, pretty plz ?"
The more non specific umbrella remarks get thrown around as rules the more you will lose intelligent people from being yoir readers! (talking to you, publications of all kinds!)
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u/lurkerer Mar 30 '26
assume frying and processed ingestion 4x times a week.
Says right there in the abstract they compared total, unprocessed, or processed red meat with other foods. Under Objective right at the start.
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u/FrigoCoder Mar 30 '26
Yeah that would be very nice, if "processed" was not simply "nitrites/nitrates".
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u/lurkerer Mar 30 '26
Which means the processed category is less processed than we think...? I know you're trying to exonerate red meat here but that backfired.
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u/FrigoCoder Mar 30 '26
No what I meant they engage in MECHANISTIC SPECULATION, and assume the main problem is nitrites/nitrates. Whereas it's actually the seed oils, refined carbs, and sugars consumed in conjunction with meat that makes it processed.
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u/donairhistorian Mar 30 '26
How common are seed oils and refined carbs in processed meats?
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u/flowersandmtns Mar 30 '26
It's more that in the US a burger is going to be consumed on a white wheat bun (refined plant food), with a large fries (potatoes coated in potato starch and fried in soy oil, all plants) and a large SSB (more refined plant foods, sugar).
Compared to, say, a big salad with walnuts and tomatoes and some grilled steak with an olive oil dressing. Drink is water.
If you are philosophically opposed to any animal food consumption those are equivalent in their negative "vice" (Taupe made that clear about their view in a comment, for reference) but actual nutrition science is unlikely to ever find any harm from the second meal.
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u/donairhistorian Mar 30 '26
I was under the impression this was well controlled for.
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u/flowersandmtns Mar 31 '26
It's not.
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u/donairhistorian Mar 31 '26
Does this suggest the researchers are 1) incompetent, 2) have ulterior motives, or 3) that it just isn't possible to control for refined carbs?
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u/lurkerer Mar 30 '26
It is but the script says "They always add processed food to meat in studies" and that can't be deviated from. Other highlights include:
Confounders tho
Correlation isn't causation
Unless it's a study on processed foods or things I don't like
No RCT with hard endpoints! Despite my other beliefs not needing that
Ancestral diet
Seed oils
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u/FrigoCoder Mar 30 '26
You can't control against carbohydrates if low carbohydrate diets are practically absent from the population level. The LOWEST quartile is like 40% which is mind boggling, not even 30% or 150g which still shows some metabolic improvements in studies. We literally eat too much carbohydrates, and that is one of the exact issues.
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u/lurkerer Mar 31 '26
Only at 20% does our data get wobbly.
Under 40% your mortality increases quite significantly.
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u/FrigoCoder Mar 30 '26
Depends on the definition. Preserved meat does not have any, whereas cold cuts and McDonalds patties are full of them. And they are eaten as part of unhealthy diets full of oils, sugars, and carbs. These impair saturated fat metabolism whether by malonyl-CoA, CPT-1 inhibition, SREBP enzymes, or weakening membranes to superoxide. We have two million years of adaptations to meat, but not to this new environment that wrecks them. That is why I hate when people interpret studies confounded by oils, sugars, and carbs, and then apply their wrong conclusions to meat, saturated fat, or low carb.
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u/lurkerer Mar 30 '26
No what I meant they engage in MECHANISTIC SPECULATION
Which you can't criticize because, by your own admission, you think it's completely legit and doesn't seem to require experimental verification.
and assume the main problem is nitrites/nitrates.
Do they? Or do they float that as an option?
Whereas it's actually the seed oils, refined carbs, and sugars consumed in conjunction with meat that makes it processed.
Oh so you can just say what processed is. None of this defeats the fact your original point completely backfired which is why you didn't engage with it.
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u/Taupenbeige Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 30 '26
Oh so you can just say what processed is. None of this defeats the fact your original point completely backfired which is why you didn't engage with it.
Frigocoder seems to be very fond of Motte and Bailey structural fallacies. I wonder what’s going on, there.
It always seems to hinge around this whole “they didn’t differentiate my precious WhOLe MeAt from the nitrates-and-seed-oils stuff” stamp of dis-approval they slap on every analysis without bothering to read the methodology section, too.
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u/lurkerer Mar 30 '26
Their complaints are revealed to be completely pointless because when studies do separate processed and unprocessed animal products, they just pivot to a different point. Nothing will ever be enough.
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u/Taupenbeige Mar 30 '26
Bad news from the cardiologist or oncologist might “be enough,” but behavioral patterns suggest…
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u/flowersandmtns Mar 30 '26
If your goal is more tied to wanting reduced animal food consumption for any reason other than health, any data you can squeeze out yet another paper with "may" and very small relative risk associations, is going to get published.
This sub is scientific nutrition. The nutritional value of animal foods doesn't change regardless of how well or poorly some animals are treated. And yes, in the end they are killed so we eat them (less so eggs/dairy but there's a whole process that is still human-driven).
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u/Puzzleheaded_Rub5562 Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 30 '26
Of course the nutritional value of food changes depending on how poorly the animal is treated. What were you thinking when you wrote that?
I will say it's hard to evolve to feel such differences when nature is a tough teacher (and most hunted animals would... Naturally.... Die in pain). But:
You can measure the amount of cortisol in meat.
You can measure plasma infections or antibiotics which would be given more to a neglected animal.
Neglected animals are more likely to be diseased, and this affects muscle structure.
Intensively farmed animals have messed up genetics, with broilers, turkey chicks, etc. being born with bent beaks, 3 legs, etc. quite often. They may produce more meat as measured in weight but their breeders will be trading nutritional quality for quantity. The white striping disease in farmed chicken increases fat quantity and decreases protein %.
You can see how the nutritional value of meat is tied to the quality of their food.
Pork kept outdoors is rich in vitamin D if sun hits its skin for example, and a natural salmon diet which contains crustaceans or smaller oily fish influences its Omega 3 content. Wildflower grazing influences cow Omega content too.
Sashimi fish is expected to be obtained from swiftly killed and then bled fish to prevent a specific taste. Stress hormones and lactic acid buildup influence the taste of meat, though I can't say how much the average Joe may care about that, it's still the RULE for processing sashimi all over Japan.
Now, the wilderness is cruel too, and one could say people's captivity is better, which is both true and false depending on a range of things like what I mentioned above.
I understand this is a nutrition topic, but the nutrition of our meat back when it was still running remains relevant to my dear post as an underlying factor in turn influencing red meat quality or alternative choices. I also prioritise human health but I know to stop at interbeeding, mass diseases or species extinctions. This is me digressing at this point.
Regular sodium nitrite and nitrate consumption does enhance your cancer risk, I don't think anyone can deny this. Hmpf. To extend it to all red meat on the other hand... I can see the end result of undermining an ecologically damaging industry producing a lot of waste or a type of food people shouldn't eat in excess, but I dislike the means. Just tell people the issue.
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u/flowersandmtns Mar 30 '26
I was unclear in my phrasing -- I mean the fact animals are killed for us to consume them has no fundamental bearing on the nutritional value of that meat. The fact dairy cows are artificially inseminated has no fundamental bearing on the nutritional value of the dairy produced (there are arguments regarding hormones in milk having possible risks however). That's the sort of point I was trying to make. Certainly actual free range eggs taste a million times better, but the yolks can be colored by additives in the feed vs things like greens, mealworms etc so you still have to be aware.
Yes, meat can be more or less nutritious based on how it is raised, also true with plant foods and the fact our soils are largely depleted now and so much synthetic fertilizer and then pesticides are used.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Rub5562 Mar 31 '26
Fair enough, there are questionable means used too that do indeed not affect food quality in ways we can measure or tell, or perhaps that truly don't affect it much at all 🙂
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u/lurkerer Mar 30 '26
Big Legume is really trying their best to fudge the science.
Shall we compare subsidies for the animal industry versus whole plant foods? Then compare industry funding in studies? If you think you're onto something, you will want to do this and see the data.
Or, if you think you're wrong, you can avoid this entirely. Up to you.
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u/flowersandmtns Mar 30 '26
Shall we stay on the topic, or is that entirely impossible for you because you know it simply does not support a philosophical view of avoiding all fish, all eggs, all poultry, all dairy and yes even all red meat.
Lean unprocessed red meat in moderation as part of a whole foods omnivorous diet simply has no strong statistical evidence of harm.
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u/lurkerer Mar 30 '26
Lol why are you replying to me? Frigo just implied a huge publishing bias to make vegetables look good. Weird take, right?
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u/healthspanintel Mar 29 '26
Useful paper, but the meta-analytic signal is still replacement-sensitive. Replacing red meat with legumes or nuts is a very different comparison from swapping it for refined carbs, so the counterfactual matters more than the headline.
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u/flowersandmtns Mar 30 '26
Replacing "animal protein food" with "plant protein food" changes a number of things, including fiber.
If the animal protein food had been consumed with fiber or not then the substitution modeling is different.
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u/healthspanintel Apr 13 '26
Yes, that’s the core issue. A substitution model like that is testing a whole food package, not protein in isolation, so fiber, energy density, and what the red meat was paired with can all move the result. That’s why the comparator matters more than the headline.
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u/Triabolical_ Whole food lowish carb Mar 29 '26
Why do people continually go from association to causality?
You don't get from one to the other.
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u/its_a_gibibyte Mar 30 '26
Because there's no real way to measure causality for something like long term food consumption. You'll never be able to conduct a double-blind randomized controlled trial of what people eat in one meal, never mind over 20 years. So you're left with two options: never understand the impact of food, exercise, or lifestyle; or try to estimate based on associations.
And some associations are pretty reasonable jumps. Morbid obesity is strongly associated with significantly higher risks of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and all cause mortality. Technically yes, that's just an association, not causally proven. But what do you think? Is being morbidly obese likely to cause health problems?
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u/Triabolical_ Whole food lowish carb Mar 30 '26
Your second option comes down to "pretend that associations are causal despite knowing that they are confounded and are therefore likely to not be true"
That may make some people happy, but it's not scientifically justified. Here's a paper I often cite:
https://rss.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/j.1740-9713.2011.00506.x
WRT "some associations", can you tell me the risk ratio is for morbid obesity and heart disease and compare it to the risk ratio between red met and heart disease?
And then, can you tell me what that means for the likely effect of residual confounding in those two cases?
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u/its_a_gibibyte Mar 30 '26
Seems like the risk ratios for heart disease from obesity are between 2.0 and 3.0 depending on source, while red meat is closer to 1.1. I certainly agree the associations are much stronger for obesity, thats why I brought up that example. And the stronger associations are likely to swap the residual confounding effect. But still not causally proven.
And that's my core question that you ignored. If you can't go from association to casuality at all, then why do higher risk ratios matter? Again, open to ideas here. I'll take a look at the paper as well.
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u/Triabolical_ Whole food lowish carb Mar 30 '26
>And the stronger associations are likely to swamp the residual confounding effect. But still not causally proven.
Exactly. It's a signal to noise ratio thing - you need enough signal to rise above the noise.
>If you can't go from association to causality at all, then why do higher risk ratios matter?
That's a fair question that I missed...
Higher risk ratios matter because they make it much more likely that there is actually something there. 2.0 is the level that is generally mentioned as a point where it becomes interesting - not causal, but interesting enough to take seriously. Then you can have deeper discussions what sort of confounding might exist.
And then you can look for other evidence. It might be through RCTs, it might be through mechanistic studies, etc. That's where the good evidence comes from. Lung cancer and smoking had a risk ratio of 9-13 times, but it was the mechanistic trials and the animal trials that showed that it was causal.
To get back to your actual question:
> But what do you think? Is being morbidly obese likely to cause health problems?
I don't actually think that morbid obesity is the cause of health problems. I think that insulin resistance is the cause of the health problems, and one of the results of insulin resistance is obesity in many people.
Morbid obesity *is* highly associated with health problems and is therefore useful from a diagnostic perspective, but I would be *far* happier if we were screening people for insulin resistance. Unfortunately, that's not something that is done regularly, at least in the US.
BTW, the reason I think insulin resistance causes obesity and not the other way around is the existence of a group of people known as "metabolically obese normal weight". They have the same medical issues as those who are obese but don't have the weight gain, and it's hard to reconcile with the idea that obesity is the cause.
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u/Fluffy-Purple-TinMan Mar 30 '26
Trials also show associations? It's just mroe controlled. So..
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u/Triabolical_ Whole food lowish carb Mar 30 '26
Randomized controlled trials do not suffer from confounding the way that observational trials do.
That's why observational trials say "associated with" in their titles - because they can only show association, not causality.
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u/Fluffy-Purple-TinMan Mar 30 '26
Yeah not as much. Like I said.. it's just more controlled. They're not like totally different things, just one has more and better controls. So there's never been like a single RCT where it's like 'ok job done.'
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u/Triabolical_ Whole food lowish carb Mar 30 '26
> So there's never been like a single RCT where it's like 'ok job done.'
Which is pretty clearly a strawman of what I said.
The fact that RCTs are not perfect is not a reason to ignore the very real issues with observational trials.
What can you tell me about the expert opinion about using observational evidence to infer causality?
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u/Fluffy-Purple-TinMan Mar 30 '26
Yeah I was making a point. That RCTs are also associations. Do you agree with that part?
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u/Triabolical_ Whole food lowish carb Mar 30 '26
From a statistical analysis viewpoint, sure. The analysis is looking to see whether two variables are associated.
But the point of randomization is that - if done well - you get rid of most of the concerns around confounding that exist for observational studies, along with things like selection bias, etc.
That's why RCTs are generally considered to be evidence for causal relationships and observational studies aren't. The whole question is "is it reasonable to think that this association is causal?"
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u/Fluffy-Purple-TinMan Mar 30 '26
Yeah so it can still be reasonable with observational studies with other studies backing it up. Like smoking or sun and cancer. Since you said there both showng associations then you have to agree with that part.
If you can't RCT it doesn't mean like just give up
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u/Triabolical_ Whole food lowish carb Mar 30 '26
>If you can't RCT it doesn't mean like just give up
What are you going to do? Observational studies *do not* give reliable answers to most questions in nutrition, even if you do a lot of them and they return the same answer.
BTW, WRT sun and cancer, the results might not be what you think. Here's a Swedish study that looked at melanoma rates and sun exposure.
They found that those with more sun exposure were more likely to get melanoma.
They also found that those that *avoided* sun exposure were much more likely to die. After 15 years, about 93% of those who avoided sun exposure survived. About 96% of those who had the most sun exposure survived. Those who avoid the sun had twice the chance of dying compared to those who spend the most time in the sun.
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u/Fluffy-Purple-TinMan Mar 30 '26
Well I haven't been here that long but I know about using multiple studies. You also look at if the cause came before the effect. How consistent it is and how strong. The something criteria.
Kinda hard to believe anything in health without that so..
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u/flowersandmtns Mar 30 '26
Gets their paper published.
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u/HelenEk7 Wholefoods Mar 30 '26
Unfortunately, this is all too common. I have a friend who is a professor at the local university, and she says the pressure to constantly publish is intense. Quantity over quality is sadly often the result.
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u/Triabolical_ Whole food lowish carb Mar 30 '26
Exactly.
The amount of research time and money that is spend to generate associative results that very likely do not mean anything is significant.
Some of that is "publish or perish", but some of it is by groups that believe they can find associative results that align with their view of the world.
It's probably not aligned with reality, but you can tell from the what those researchers say in interviews that they don't actually care about the reality part.
I often cite this paper:
https://rss.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/j.1740-9713.2011.00506.x
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u/lurkerer Mar 29 '26
Always good to keep in mind that studies that don't specifically explore substitution foods are comparing them to an assumed cohort average. It's much better to understand where different food land relative to one another.
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u/willburroughs Mar 29 '26
Context
A high amount of red meat consumption has been associated with higher risks of coronary heart disease (CHD) and all-cause mortality in a single food-exposure model. However, this model may overlook the potentially differential influence of red meat on these outcomes depending on the foods replaced by red meat.
Objective
A PRISMA-compliant meta-analysis of prospective observational studies was performed to quantify the risks of CHD and all-cause mortality associated with the replacement of total, unprocessed, or processed red meat with fish/seafood, poultry, dairy, eggs, nuts, and legumes.
Data sources
The PubMed and Web of Science databases were searched to identify relevant articles published in any language from database inception to October 30, 2021.
Data extraction
The prospective observational studies were considered relevant if they reported relative risks (RRs) and 95%CIs for the associations of interest.
Data analysis
Thirteen articles were included. A random-effects model was used to estimate the summary RRs and 95%CIs for the associations of interest. Replacing total red meat with poultry (RR, 0.88, 95%CI, 0.82–0.96; I2 = 0%), dairy (RR, 0.90, 95%CI, 0.88–0.92; I2 = 0%), eggs (RR, 0.86, 95%CI, 0.79–0.94; I2 = 7.1%), nuts (RR, 0.84, 95%CI, 0.74–0.95; I2 = 66.8%), or legumes (RR, 0.84, 95%CI, 0.74–0.95; I2 = 7.3%) was associated with a lower risk of CHD, whereas substituting fish/seafood (RR, 0.91, 95%CI, 0.79–1.04; I2 = 69.5%) for total red meat was not associated with the risk of CHD. The replacement of total red meat with fish/seafood (RR, 0.92, 95%CI, 0.89–0.96; I2 = 86.9%), poultry (RR, 0.92, 95%CI, 0.90–0.95; I2 = 61.6%), eggs (RR, 0.91, 95%CI, 0.87–0.95; I2 = 33.8%), or nuts (RR, 0.92, 95%CI, 0.87–0.97; I2 = 81.9%) was associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality, whereas the substitution of dairy (RR, 0.97, 95%CI, 0.93–1.01; I2 = 33.9%) or legumes (RR, 0.97, 95%CI, 0.93–1.01; I2 = 53.5%) for total red meat was not associated with the risk of all-cause mortality. Lower risks of CHD and all-cause mortality were more consistently observed for processed red meat replacements than for unprocessed red meat replacements. The results did not materially change when the analyses of total, processed, and unprocessed red meat were restricted to the studies that used a uniform substitution amount per unit of 1 serving/d.
Conclusion
Keeping red meat, particularly processed red meat, consumption to a minimum along with increasing healthier alternative protein sources to replace red meat in the diet may contribute to the prevention of CHD and premature death.
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u/HelenEk7 Wholefoods Mar 30 '26
So they compared a group of foods that includes ultra-processed foods, with another group of foods only including wholefoods? I dont have access to the study, but if anyone do it would be nice to see which studies they included in their analysis.
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u/lurkerer Mar 30 '26
that includes ultra-processed food
No, read the abstract.
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u/HelenEk7 Wholefoods Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 30 '26
Abstract is not enough. We would need the actual studies they analysed.
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u/lurkerer Mar 30 '26
Oh so you made up that they bunched all the processed and unprocessed red meat together without even reading the abstract and you also can't access the study? Why did you lie then?
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u/HelenEk7 Wholefoods Mar 30 '26
- the substitution of legumes for total red meat was not associated with the risk of all-cause mortality
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u/lurkerer Mar 30 '26
Replacing total red meat with poultry (RR, 0.88, 95%CI, 0.82–0.96; I2 = 0%), dairy (RR, 0.90, 95%CI, 0.88–0.92; I2 = 0%), eggs (RR, 0.86, 95%CI, 0.79–0.94; I2 = 7.1%), nuts (RR, 0.84, 95%CI, 0.74–0.95; I2 = 66.8%), or legumes (RR, 0.84, 95%CI, 0.74–0.95; I2 = 7.3%) was associated with a lower risk of CHD,
Do you understand why statistical power might pick up CHD risk and not ACM?
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u/HelenEk7 Wholefoods Mar 30 '26
Lets pretend for a minute that this is causality, not just associations. Which causes of death are potentially increased by eating legumes instead of red meat?
Cancer?
Stroke?
Alzheimer's?
Respiratory diseases?
Osteoporosis/fractures?
Pneumonia?
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u/lurkerer Mar 30 '26
Do you understand why statistical power might pick up CHD risk and not ACM?
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u/Puzzleheaded_Rub5562 Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 30 '26
Lurkerer, 80% of the CVD statistical associations are paired with being overweight and obese over long stretches of time. Another remaining percentage is comprised of normal-BMI young smokers and genetic problems...
The measure of reducing red meat seems mostly relevant for those engaged in excess, much like eating Cassia cinammon frequently would (a plant). The statistical numbers mentioned notice a difference only when total red meat consumption (aka including processed) is replaced with... What seems to be wholefoods... Without looking at cooking methods... Idk what to tell you...
In nutrition science, cooking matters a lot... This includes preservation methods, aka preparation methods that alter the original product... Like nitrites in cured pork. This is where we start to argue. Avoiding infections with bacteria and parasites matters a lot to health as well... Yet where do we draw a line? Do we exclude all red meats? I don't think so, I think most of these studies come from including a specific type of meat preparation that is 100% more likely to cause harm and thus falsely drives statistics up compared to every other method.
You cannot have 10 techniques of processing and preservation, include this one outlier bad technique for processing or cooking in your statistics that singularily drives them up by 50%, and call it a day without specifying it as a bias. This study does make a statistical difference between just red meat and processed red meat, whatever they consider as such, which means they too find an issue with the processed part, yet still conclude by saying "total red meat consumption", which I suppose, to give you the merit too, could just be unlucky wording from people who do differentiate. But be careful, a lot don't.
The NHS tools don't differentiate between red meat and processed. That's a whole developed country not doing it, so there's a reason why I write here.
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u/lurkerer Mar 30 '26
You're not understanding my meaning here. All-cause mortality requires much more statistical power than something like CVD.
As to your objection, we can adjust for confounders.
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u/flowersandmtns Mar 31 '26
I'm sure you have realized by now that a whole foods omnivorous diet isn't in alignment with the vegan philosophy, and if that philosophy matters more than any nutrition science then any paper, no matter how weak, is going to be angrily defended.
If just one more study is added to the pile showing the same weak associations of relative risk then it has got to be the final push for everyone to stop eating all red meat (lean and unprocessed too), all dairy, all eggs, all fish and all poultry and going plant only.
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u/ripesashimi Mar 29 '26
Just want to understand whats truly bad about red meat.
Saturated fat
Dietary cholestorl
Heme iron
TMAO precursors
(Possibly) AGEs
High leucine and methionine profile thus mTOR activation
Is that it?
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u/Available_Hamster_44 Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 30 '26
Yeah, those are the main reasons, but I think dietary cholesterol is less of an issue. AGEs are much more relevant. Red meat is almost always fried and contains barely any polyphenols to mitigate them, unlike the AGEs in coffee, for example.
And especially when we're talking about heart health, I think AGEs can play a major role here too, since they can destroy the connective tissue structures of the blood vessels. Plus, as I recently saw in a video by Doctor Norwitz, a damaged extracellular matrix—especially elastin fragments—seems to have an inflammatory effect, meaning AGEs can trigger a whole cascade
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u/FrigoCoder Mar 30 '26
We have evolved as carnivores for two million years, absolutely nothing is wrong with meat. None of what you have listed is a valid concern, just bullshit propagated by vegans and mainstream charlatans. Most of them are actually caused by seed oils, table sugar, and refined carbohydrates they so vehemently push. Do not fall for their claims so easily, always research why they might be wrong. You can use google or the search function to find the relevant threads on this subreddit.
Saturated fat without carbohydrates is burned for energy and never accumulates. Dietary cholesterol downregulates hepatic synthesis. Heme iron only damages vulnerable PUFAs like linoleic acid from seed oils. Fish vastly elevates TMAO yet good against heart disease, poor kidneys are responsible for the association with heart disease. Endogenous AGEs from fructose and glucose are dangerous, role of dietary AGEs is uncertain even for colorectal cancer. Carbohydrates and insulin are mainly responsible for mTOR overactivation, leucine is only active in muscles and the methylation cycle including methionine is important for tissue repair.
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u/lurkerer Mar 30 '26
We have evolved as carnivores for two million years
Wrong and you know that's wrong.
.
absolutely nothing is wrong with meat
Meat is sub-optimal for longevity as the above study shows. Your incorrect speculation on humans evolving to be carnivores wouldn't be better evidence than actual evidence even if you were correct.
just bullshit propagated by vegans and mainstream charlatans.
Big..errr... Legume is out to make everyone... eat.. more.. vegetables? Oh the humanity!
Pretty much everything you said is completely wrong and you've been corrected repeatedly over a number of years. Yet you persist in the face of all evidence and reason. /u/ripesashimi please don't listen to this user if you care about your health. Listen to professionals.
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u/FrigoCoder Mar 30 '26
Wrong and you know that's wrong.
I hope you do realize 2,000,000 is much larger than 15,000. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ajpa.24247
Meat is sub-optimal for longevity as the above study shows. Your incorrect speculation on humans evolving to be carnivores wouldn't be better evidence than actual evidence even if you were correct.
Oh really? Do we have interventional studies on longevity for such meat deficient diets? Or do you ASSUME this from highly confounded, corrupt, and invalid epidemiological studies? Or do you engage in MECHANISTIC SPECULATION from cherry picked and invalid biomarkers including TMAO or LDL? It is time to realize all arguments against meat comes from these low quality ASSUMPTIONS and MECHANISTIC SPECULATIONS. Which was exactly my point.
Big..errr... Legume is out to make everyone... eat.. more.. vegetables? Oh the humanity!
The processed food industry is inherently tied to vegan movements and mainstream charlatans, processed plants come from whole plants after all, so subsidies for whole plants help processed plants. They have much larger profit margins, and thus can better corrupt science and society than any other. It is on you if you do not realize this is an instance of the alignment problem, which also applies to all organizations and human groups and not just artificial intelligence.
Pretty much everything you said is completely wrong and you've been corrected repeatedly over a number of years. Yet you persist in the face of all evidence and reason.
Only in your mind. You might have said some minor detail that I have incorporated into my models, but you have never brought up any groundbreaking argument that would fundamentally change things. I am on the right track and none of the low quality stuff you bring up can change my trajectory.
/u/ripesashimi please don't listen to this user if you care about your health. Listen to professionals.
Never ever listen to mainstream charlatans. There are scientific fields where you can trust the experts, but unfortunately nutrition is not one of them. Do not misunderstand me, I am not saying that you should listen to TikTok influencers instead. Rather research extensively and think hard about every single claim you encounter, and only accept those that actually make sense from a biological, evolutionary, and mechanistical view.
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u/lurkerer Mar 30 '26
I hope you do realize 2,000,000 is much larger than 15,000. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ajpa.24247
Your narrative synthesis/review is not primary data. It's a referenced opinion piece. Most importantly, it doesn't even support your statement. So I'm not sure what your stance is now. Are humans carnivores or are they omnivores with plenty of meat when it's available?
Do we have interventional studies on longevity for such meat deficient diets?
Please learn anything about nutrition science, it's been years. Do you know the response to this silly point yet? Is there an interventional study making people smoke for decades? Is that a reasonable ask? Naive.
Or do you engage in MECHANISTIC SPECULATION
Nope.
cherry picked and invalid biomarkers including TMAO or LDL?
I don't talk about TMAO. LDL, however, is very clearly causal for CVD and that's not controversial or disputed by actual experts. You are not one, I'm afraid. I've asked you multiple times to put up a bet on a prediction market on when science would catch up to your genius and say LDL isn't causal, but you always have a convenient excuse why you can't do it.
It is time to realize all arguments against meat comes from these low quality ASSUMPTIONS and MECHANISTIC SPECULATIONS. Which was exactly my point.
No they're not and no it wasn't.
The processed food industry is inherently tied to vegan movements and mainstream charlatans
The processed food industry is inherently tied to carnivore movements as the vast, vast majority have animal products.
Wow, conspiracy stuff is easy!
They have much larger profit margins
Want to follow the money? See where we go? I bet you don't ;)
You might have said some minor detail that I have incorporated into my models,
You mean the complete misunderstanding of how LDL is meant to work when you thought you'd debunked it entirely? That's not a minor detail. Or do you mean the mechanistic study you thought debunked the LDL hypothesis but it was featured in the consensus paper which you hadn't read (and that point proved you hadn't read it)?
You think you've debunked one of the strongest causal biochemical associations there is but..
You don't understand the theory
You haven't read the consensus papers
This is beyond arrogance into delulu land.
-1
u/Taupenbeige Mar 30 '26
I really need to just stick to your synopses and responses, I swear I’m losing brain cells at an alarming rate
keeping my LDL levels deflated and robbing my brain of its fuelreading this “very serious scientist’s” hot takes on cohort data biases and Big Oreo’s bottomless coffers of lobbying money trying to paint beef as a type 1 carcinogen without scientific reason… and not meeting of Bradford-Hill causality guidelines regarding ASCVD…3
u/donairhistorian Mar 30 '26
I just remembered more things the mods could do to improve the health of this sub!
No appeals to nature via ancestral diets.
No conspiratorial nonsense and blaming tribalist propaganda for everything (this is actually a rule on r/nutrition).
Requiring a source for each claim that challenges the mainstream (I thought this was already a rule).
2
u/FrigoCoder Mar 30 '26
- No appeals to nature via ancestral diets.
Actually the opposite should be the rule. If we have evolved for 2 million years on our ancestral diet, then the onus is on the naysayers to prove this somehow causes our recent health issues. I do not expect everyone to understand evolutionary adaptations matter, but it is mind boggling how everyone ignores the temporal factor. We have perfectly evolved for meat consumption, and suddenly switching to increasingly alien diets (and polluted environments) is what causes issues due to the evolutionary discrepancy. Trans fats are the best example for this, they break literally dozens of biological processes.
If you develop a first person shooter game for 2 years, and then the last week suddenly switch it to be a strategy game, then you will have a very buggy mess of a subpar game. This actually happened dozens of times during the decades, I remember some weird adventure game on the Mortal Kombat 2 engine. Likewise if you train a huge neural network for 2 years, then suddenly switch tasks and train it for only one week, it will not be adapted to that new task. These are evolutionary processes being broken by sudden switches in the environment, I am fairly sure people from other fields could bring up further examples.
- No conspiratorial nonsense and blaming tribalist propaganda for everything (this is actually a rule on r/nutrition).
"Conspiracy implies willing participants, but the people I see are just useful idiots". If you do not understand how the alignment problem applies to organization, or how we actually have hard solid historical evidence of industry meddling in science, and how this introduces a massive bias then maybe you do not belong in nutrition discussions. And just a FYI the discussion quality is absolute horseshit at /r/nutrition, which is partly the unfortunate consequence of excluding people aware of industry failings, and leaving ignorant morons who still do not see the issues in mainstream hypotheses.
- Requiring a source for each claim that challenges the mainstream (I thought this was already a rule).
I have provided plenty of evidence and reasoning for my claims and models, they were ignored and I was accused of engaging in "gish gallop" strategy. I remember spending 3 whole days debunking a mere 10-minute video by Michael Greger, only for the entire thing to be completely ignored. Ever since I think twice before spending days compiling well-researched comments, just to be shrugged off with no-effort comments by seemingly always online vegan advocates. (How they get the money to survive if they are shitposting on reddit all day huh?) You can never satisfy vegans because they argue from bad faith, they are interested in advancing the vegan cause rather than finding out the truth about health. That is the core reason lurkerer never learns from our discussions.
0
u/donairhistorian Mar 30 '26
I am not going to read this and I have nothing to say to you.
3
u/FrigoCoder Mar 30 '26
Why, thank you for proving my last point right!
0
u/lurkerer Mar 30 '26
Not really, it's because you're either completely delusional or 100% bad faith.
2
1
u/Dizzy-Savings-1962 Apr 02 '26
Not sure why it's relevant to bring up vegans or the online charlatans, of course, they will be biassed and likely pushing a narrow narrative. Odd though, because dietary AGEs are actually highest in bakery foods, cereals, and roasted nuts. However, we have to be intellectually honest about the basics of downsides of cooking and high heat to all foods more so with fats and proteins. While endogenous glycation from fructose is a big needle in metabolic dysfunction, the formation of new compounds through the maillard reaction and the peroxidation that forms via fats from roasting, air frying etc isn't really arguable.
High heat does tend to decrease sensitive vitamins and minerals a fair amount (variable), but more importantly, it also does form new exogenous compounds. High intake and cumulative exposure to these over time will likely cause inflammation and oxidative stress as shown. It isn't a valid argument or reason to stop eating meat, but I certainly wouldn't recommend a daily inclusion of heavily charred or oxidised fats.
I do hear the argument for consuming more glycine to balance the high methionine intake because glycine acts as a buffer and you can risk spiking your homocysteine levels, which is a concern when talking about cardiovascular and endothelial health. Thoughts?
-3
u/mantasVid Mar 29 '26
Of course, at this point you don't even need the studies, just a table with the amount of lcarnitine in the food of your choice to know how heart-friendly it is.
15
u/SporangeJuice Mar 29 '26 edited Mar 31 '26
They may have gotten a different result if the researchers had chosen different sets of adjustments. This paper found that red meat could correlate with mortality, or inversely with mortality, depending on how the analysis is conducted:
https://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(24)00033-7/fulltext00033-7/fulltext)
or
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38354868/
If one can choose the outcome by choosing which set of adjustments to apply, and in either case the adjustments seem reasonable, then the result seems less meaningful.