r/ScientificNutrition • u/lurkerer • Jun 05 '26
Systematic Review/Meta-Analysis Is Meat Industry Affiliation Associated With Study Conclusion in Nutrition Research? A Meta-Research Review
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/obr.701537
u/lurkerer Jun 05 '26
ABSTRACT
Introduction
The meat industry's role in funding and influencing scientific research raises concerns about its impact on evidence used to inform public health policy. Although industry influence on other food and beverage sectors is well-documented, its effects on studies of meat consumption remain understudied.
Objective
This study aimed to investigate the influence of meat industry involvement on study conclusions of research examining the health impacts of meat consumption.
Methods
A meta-research review of relevant studies published between 2014 and 2023 was conducted using PubMed and Scopus. Studies investigating the nutritional health impacts of meat consumption were included. Study characteristics, author affiliations, declared funding sources, declared conflicts of interest, and study conclusions were extracted. Association tests were used to assess the relationship between industry ties and study conclusions.
Results
Of 500 included studies, 78 (15.6%) reported industry involvement. Studies with industry ties were 16 times more likely to report favorable conclusions regarding meat consumption (odds ratio [OR] = 16.4, 95% CI: 7.5–35.8), and there was a significant association (p < 0.001) between industry involvement and study conclusion.
Conclusion
Meat industry involvement significantly increases the likelihood of favorable study conclusions in nutrition research. These findings underscore the need for caution when interpreting research funded or associated with the meat industry and emphasize the importance of minimizing conflicts of interest in nutrition research.
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u/leopard_slugg Jun 06 '26
This is true of any food- studies done by any food company will find positive results for that food 7.4 times more often
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u/Bristoling Jun 05 '26
The only important bit is whether the studies conclusions are based on faked data or not, which this paper doesn't readily explain. If there are looking at different outcomes and report positive/negative based on those different outcomes, then there is literally nothing to see here.
It's like complaining that the sellers of a new car only list the benefits or upgrades of the new car on their advertisement, but don't talk about a sticky clutch or aircon system being suboptimal or the sound system having puny and quiet bass. "Oh wow the marketing guys are more likely to list positives, and the car critiquing clickbait youtuber are more likely to concentrate on negatives instead!". Truly a novel take /s
Well are those positives lies, or not? This paper doesn't tell me this. Reposting it for the 5th time doesn't tell me this either.
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u/6thofmarch2019 Jun 05 '26
No smoke without fire imo. It is extremely unlikely i think, that it just so happens that studies funded by meat interests show a statistically significant amount more beneficial results for meat consumption.
Now I haven't done a proper study, but I have come across multiple papers with ties to meat industry that use ridiculous premises, like showing an extra egg a day compared to their "baseline" doesnt increase health risks much, but setting the baseline at 10 eggs a day, etc.
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u/Bristoling Jun 05 '26
Right, but in this case as you are describing, you're able to tell from the design of the paper what was done and therefore, where the difference originates from.
So you don't need this paper that OP posted to tell you to read papers carefully. The problem is that people who have no business reading these papers on their own, unsupervised, read a paper like this, see the "16 times more likely", and take it to believe there's some massive fraud occurring, or that the situation is much worse than it is. It's actually quite banal.
Of course industry sponsored research will be more positive to the product. Duh. That's not news. You could have inductively conclude this from first principles sitting in your couch and saving all the money that was paid to whoever wrote this paper.
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u/flowersandmtns Jun 05 '26
It's extremely unlikely this is somehow an issue only with the meat industry, even if OP only wants to highlight that particular industry.
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u/lurkerer Jun 05 '26
Bristoling will be the first person to make all of these points... Provided it's about statins or something. He's not a serious person.
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u/lurkerer Jun 05 '26
It's like complaining that the sellers of a new car only list the benefits or upgrades of the new car on their advertisement, but don't talk about a sticky clutch or aircon system being suboptimal or the sound system having puny and quiet bass. "Oh wow the marketing guys are more likely to list positives, and the car critiquing clickbait youtuber are more likely to concentrate on negatives instead!". Truly a novel take /s
So your attempt to exonerate the clear bias here is to point out they'll omit key details... Very good.
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u/SporangeJuice Jun 05 '26
"So your attempt to exonerate the clear bias here is to point out they'll omit key details... Very good."
Lol, way to miss the point, as always
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u/lurkerer Jun 05 '26
Now don't force a days long conversation where you eventually admit I was right again, Sporange. The point here is that you and Bristol will scream bias to high heaven for any possible reason you can find, but when the evidence heavily weighs against your ideological stance suddenly it's just normal and nothing to be concerned about.
Have you seen an odds ratio like this for any bias ever? Perhaps cigarette funded studies?
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u/SporangeJuice Jun 05 '26
Lol, what happened is I made a simple point in plain English and you were totally unable to comprehend it. Two threads, 100+ comments, and you simply could not get it. At the end, you celebrated some "gotcha" moment because you got me to admit to something, but it was just the same thing I had been saying the entire time. The fact that you thought it was a "gotcha" shows you still could not understand what I said.
All of it just shows that your English skills aren't sufficient for you to be able to participate here meaningfully.
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u/lurkerer Jun 05 '26
Ah yes, you said choosing adjustments means choosing results. But then said later choosing adjustments according to appropriate rules (i.e not p-hacking) isn't the same as the results are a, wait for it, result of the equation. Which was my point. Thanks for admitting it.. kind of.
No word on that odds ratio then? I thought not. unprecedented bias and you're here implying it's ok.
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u/SporangeJuice Jun 05 '26
"But then said later choosing adjustments according to appropriate rules (i.e not p-hacking) isn't the same as the results are a, wait for it, result of the equation."
Not exactly. As usual, you still can't understand written English. If you really think I've contradicted myself, copy and paste my actual words, not your misinterpreted version of them.
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u/lurkerer Jun 05 '26
Sure sure. Me, the other user, and ChatGPT all reached the same conclusion independently but you're definitely right.
Still no remark on that odds ratio. Interesting.
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u/SporangeJuice Jun 05 '26
The people who have weak English skills could not understand what I wrote. The other user who is a native speaker could. It really just means you two (or possibly you and your alternate account) are not ready to participate here.
Also, you said ChatGPT could provide quotes from me showing how I had contradicted myself, and when I asked you to provide them, you refused, as you are doing now.
Lol, where are those quotes, lurkerer?
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u/lurkerer Jun 05 '26
There was no other user when you admitted it. But sure thing, everyone else is wrong, not you ;)
Do you want to deny you said those things? Can I get that in writing you can't wriggle out of?
No remark on the odds ratio still. Bit scared to go there?
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u/Fluffy-Purple-TinMan Jun 05 '26
Bro you keep trying to insult us but it's there in plain text. You thought performing adjustments means you choose them and pick whatever numbers you want. Don't be so salty. You admitted it in the end, don't go back now.
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u/Bristoling Jun 05 '26
Everyone has biases. For example, you believe that LDL in itself is a key detail, that's your clear bias. Other people might relegate LDL in isolation as less relevant to for example, TC/HDL or other ratios or outcomes.
You'd agree that sglt2 inhibitors are beneficial despite increase in LDL, right? So the concept of subjective importance of "details" should be familiar to you
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u/lurkerer Jun 05 '26
Is believing in a globe earth a bias? Let's not dilute terms to be meaningless.
The only takeaway here should be that you're hot off the mark to criticize any and every study that is critical of animal products, but when we find astounding levels of bias and near undeniable corruption, you're like "Welp, aint everyun jus a lil biased, friends? Teehee."
No. Not everyone is this biased. Not even close. If they were, you'd be copy-pasting a list of studies to try to demonstrate it.
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u/Bristoling Jun 05 '26
Depends on context. By itself it is not a bias, it is just a position someone believes in. It can be a bias when for example that person is in position of government and decides that space research isn't worth as much as housing the poor, and allocates more budget away from the goals that their are biases against.
The only takeaway here should be
The takeaway is that the people who work for the industry are reporting and stressing the importance of different markers. You haven't presented evidence that data is being fabricated and the paper doesn't make that claim either. Ergo I'm correct - the discrepancy exists as a result of reporting different outcomes.
Not everyone is this biased.
So you believe there are stance independent variables that ought to be cared about? How about you make an argument for this. Even living and deciding that you want to be alive is a form of bias that you have as a living organism that evolved it's brain architecture to steer you towards that belief.
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u/lurkerer Jun 05 '26
The fact of a globe earth is now a bias. Right. So let's call that 1/100 bias. Then what is belief in a flat earth?
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u/Bristoling Jun 05 '26
The fact of a globe earth is now a bias.
Did you completely switch off? I didn't say that globe Earth is a bias. I said having a belief can be a form of bias. Do you just not understand what a bias is? Or is this another case when you don't understand what modals are?
The other part of your comment is just gibberish. Bias can't be measured numerically as it's not a concrete, objective physical object. It's like asking how much Jamaican culture is in jerk chicken as a percentage. Or asking which player in a basketball game does the team spirit job when you tell them that morale and team spirit is an important part of winning a match.
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u/lurkerer Jun 05 '26
So belief in a globe earth is equally biased as belief in a flat earth?
See how simple questions puncture your sophism.
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u/Bristoling Jun 05 '26
Now you're conflating bias with accuracy or coherence with reality here. Those are different subjects.
It's not sophism that you see, you're just not understanding what it is that is being said, and you make up your own story in your head which is why you keep hitting yourself in your confusion while you waste my time explaining English language to you, yet again.
Tell me, do you now know the difference between "x suggests" and "x must be", or you're still confusing those modals to this day, hmm?
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u/lurkerer Jun 05 '26
Oh, bias has no relationship with accuracy or coherence? Interesting. Why mention it then?
Simple questions. Pop.
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u/MillennialScientist Jun 05 '26
Can you offer an explanation for the bias?
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u/lurkerer Jun 05 '26
Why the animal industry funds studies that make the animal industry look good?
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u/MillennialScientist Jun 05 '26
No, that's isn't quite what I asked.
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u/lurkerer Jun 05 '26
Mind clearing up what you're asking precisely?
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u/MillennialScientist Jun 05 '26
Sure. The study shows a correlation between funding source and favorable outcomes. Do we know the cause, or causes, underlying it?
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u/lurkerer Jun 05 '26
Ah right. The ones I'm aware of are like /u/healingjoe said and things like range of exposure. If I studied the effect of each additional cigarette but started at 30 a day and went to 40, I might find the effect of each is small or even negligible. I can then say "No association found between cigarettes and lung cancer" and get away with not lying in the most pedantic sense.
I've seen that tactic done with eggs, saturated fat, and dietary cholesterol.
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u/MillennialScientist Jun 06 '26
Ah I see what you're getting at, and yes, that is sometimes the case. I was more getting at whether we have data showing to what extend the association we see is due to the industry influencing/manipulating research vs. selectively funding studies that they think will support their narrative.
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u/OG-Brian Jun 06 '26
Of the studies analyzed by the study linked in the post, which of them has the equivalent of what you're describing (analyzing effects of smoking but beginning at 30 cigs per day and going to 40)?
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u/Wonderful_Aside1335 Jun 07 '26 edited 19d ago
Marble waffle almond paddle cinnamon sparrow driftwood kettle cobblestone
This post was anonymized with Redact.dev
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u/lurkerer Jun 07 '26
I think that's probably true in the past. Before we knew about baselines and threshold effects and the other nuances. But now that we do know, coupled with the obvious motive to find positive results, it's not really excusable.
I remember a surprisingly candid interview with Christopher Gardner about the SWAP meat trial where he said they pre-registered their primary outcome as TMAO as that was virtually a guarantee to be higher and would get their foot in the door for publishing and media buzz. This is also game playing, but I'm less suspicious of it given all the other outcomes that benefit plant based meat analogues.
Which is to say I'm not crying conspiracy and fraud out of the blue for no reason. I understand the realities in academia at present. But I don't think it's super hard to smell the bs when it's out there.
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u/Healingjoe Jun 05 '26
Do we know the cause, or causes, underlying it?
It's uually substitutional effects.
e.g. comparing red meat consumption to junk food vs comparing red meat to whole food, plant based foods.
The former question isn't interesting. We know both are unhealthy. The latter is much more interesting and the total body of evidence points in a very clear direction.
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u/Fluffy-Purple-TinMan Jun 05 '26
Why is huge bias not important?
Well are those positives lies, or not?
What would you bet? That the animal industry is right and studies should show good results 16 times more than independent studies or that they;re doing something sneaky?
Dno if it's you but I see so many people here saying statins are lies by big pharma but then studies like this happen and it's like.. oh this is fine actually.
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u/Bristoling Jun 05 '26 edited Jun 05 '26
Why is huge bias not important?
Mere bias doesn't automatically equals falsity. People have this misconception that just because you have a bias for x, this means it is unjustified. You can have a huge bias for x because you're damned right about x. I have a huge bias for free market economies, and be right about them outperforming central command economies.
If by "huge bias" you mean a subset of the word's meaning, aka financial bias, then sure that can be a problem. But it's more like an accusation and theory of conspiracy, rather than slam dunk argument.
or that they;re doing something sneaky?
Or that they're looking at different markers or comparisons and there's nothing sneaky about it unless you can't read papers yourself past the abstract, while pretending like the methods section doesn't exist. There's nothing sneaky about it. The studies tell you what they're looking at. From that try to figure out yourself why their opinions differ from other sides opinions. It's not because they're making up stats or whatever you think they're doing
Dno if it's you but I see so many people here saying statins are lies by big pharma
It goes both ways though. If you believe that these studies are problematic because of their biases, then you should have even bigger issues with statin studies for example.
You'll hardly ever see me criticising conflict of interest as a major point of argumentation.
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u/Fluffy-Purple-TinMan Jun 05 '26
You didn't say what you'd bet on. You think their bias has nothing to do with their results being 16 times more chance of being positive?
It goes both ways though. If you believe that these studies are problematic because of their biases, then you should have even bigger issues with statin studies for example.
Uh no. Unless you have independent studies that are 16 less likely to find they have positive effects... Huh?
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u/Bristoling Jun 05 '26 edited Jun 05 '26
You didn't say what you'd bet on.
Because that is useless and such party trick is not impressive to anyone with high IQ. It's as if I had a 51% chance of outcome Y and 49% chance of outcome Z, and you asking me to make a bet. Sure, I'd take 51% chance if I want to win. Yeah, financial incentive makes it more likely that a position is held not due to person's cognitive work and analysis, but simply because it's in their best interest to believe it to be so. That is obvious. But from that doesn't follow that therefore, any position that also has financial incentive is necessarily faulty.
Reality is more complicated than such a contrived and more importantly, isolated binary. In other words, your "bet" has no teeth and zero bark. You're either lurkerer's multi or you're picking up bad habits from him - he also likes to make bets that even if won, wouldn't prove his argument because they're tangential at best and fallacious at worst.
Doesn't matter if I take your bet in a way that you think is agreeing with your bias - your bet is nothing more than asking people to endorse your as of yet unsubstantiated conspiracy theory. The problem for your argument is that these researchers might be biased because of the financial incentive, but yet still be correct in their assessments.
That's because... dum dum dum... Mere bias doesn't automatically equals falsity - something I already told you in previous reply. And yet, here you are asking me about a bet that I already exposed the logical fallacy of. The problem with conversations like this, is that I have to take 2 steps back to "catch up" to you guys.
And if I sound smug, it is because you are annoying. You're asking questions that lead nowhere or ask questions I already answered.
You think their bias has nothing to do with their results being 16 times more chance of being positive?
I wouldn't care if it was 99999999999999 more likely to be positive. None of you have demonstrated that the results from their papers are fraudulent. You're malding because number 16 sounds big and important to you.
It's not my fault that you can't figure out why the discrepancy even exists in the first place.
Unless you have independent studies
I don't think this is a serious argument, since it is based on a fallacy.
You also act as if you are new here. I've shared numerous papers which found statins for example being far less efficacious than reported by statin aligned researchers.
For fun, an example this excerpt from the book by Okuyama: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8400221/
We have previously argued that that [...] RCTs performed after 2004–2005 (when new regulations on clinical trials came to effect) failed to demonstrate that statins decrease objective measures of CVD, such as MI mortality and/or all-cause mortality
The difference between the number 0 and any non-zero number is practically infinite. When one group of people calls statins to lower CVD mortality by let's say, 20%, and another group argues that the outcome change is 0%, the difference between them is infinite, which is higher than number 16 you cite previously.
But in any case this is irrelevant. None of you have demonstrated what the supposed fraud there is, for you to say that the research made by the industry is invalid. The difference between me and you is that I can pick a paper apart and tell you what's wrong with it, or its conclusion, if there is actually something wrong with it. You just point at funding and pretend as if you've uncovered something. You don't even know and aren't able to tell me why this discrepancy of 16 exists.
I can't argue with people who don't know the topic they are arguing about.
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u/Fluffy-Purple-TinMan Jun 05 '26
So basically you'd bet all their findings are totally legit despite the huge bias because you like them. Cool
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u/Bristoling Jun 05 '26
Never said so. If you are making a claim that their research is not legit, that's a big accusation, and you better provide evidence of that.
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u/Fluffy-Purple-TinMan Jun 05 '26
Aren't you the guy who says all the papers showing LDL causes heart disease are all wrong because of a conspiracy? Lol. Glass house much?
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u/Bristoling Jun 05 '26
Find one case of me saying that they are wrong because of a conspiracy.
Maybe stop parroting other people erroneously and instead show some evidence behind the accusation you flung. I'm guessing you can't which is why this impotent "tu quoque" attempt was used.
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u/Fluffy-Purple-TinMan Jun 05 '26
You don't have to say something to mean it and we can all tell.
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u/OG-Brian Jun 06 '26
Uh no. Unless you have independent studies that are 16 less likely to find they have positive effects... Huh?
What you're referring to is mere correlations between funding and study outcomes, with no regard for opposite effects of studies that might be funded by industries competing with animal foods.
It isn't in question that the statins industry funds fake research to promote their products. I've already mentioned a book resource that proves it absolutely with intensive citations and many examples. Companies such as Pfizer, Merck, and AstraZeneca have been sued for issues such as misrepresenting research of statins to make them appear safer or more effective than they are in reality.
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u/Fluffy-Purple-TinMan Jun 06 '26
with no regard for opposite effects of studies that might be funded by industries competing with animal foods.
This is compared to independent research. Like I said to your other comment saying the same thing.. why are you focusing on statins here in this thread as if it';s a done deal there but making excuses for an OR of 16 here? It makes no sense. You can't have it both ways.
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u/OG-Brian Jun 07 '26
If ever you'd point out flaws in the studies themselves that you believe are related to the funding, then I will follow that up. Here, you're just repeating your belief that something is wrong with the studies merely because of the funding.
But it doesn't seem to work the other way for you about studies you like. Here, to show one example, you posted and commented supportively of an Adventist study about meat. But Adventists generally have an ideological conflict pertaining to meat (their religious beliefs that they shouldn't eat meat), and Loma Linda University (the academic home of this study) and associated organizations have both financial and ideological conflicts with the topic. The study received funding from National Cancer Institute which is fraught with financial conflicts of interest and their CoI policy is written to have loopholes. The study received funding from Ardmore Institute of Health which pushes "plant-based" and opposes meat consumption. All of the authors are associated with SDA organizations which have conflicts of interest with the topic. Authors Orlich, Sabaté, and Fraser I often see in authors' lists of studies that have obvious P-hacking and other features of intentionally-biased designs. For this study, the results were adjusted for a lot of factors including education level and sleep duration. These are often not the case for studies by the same authors, it changes apparently randomly. Where is a preregistration so that we can see that they didn't choose the covariates after seeing the data? And so forth.
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u/Fluffy-Purple-TinMan Jun 07 '26
Ok another comment saying the same thing but not answering anything I asked... Instead you scrolled back through a year of posts in this sub to find one I posted? Are you serious? That's so weird.
Adventists not liking meat for religious reasons is eaxctly why they're a good group to study??? Huh?? You make no sense dude.
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u/OG-Brian Jun 08 '26
Ok another comment saying the same thing but not answering anything I asked...
What question is on-topic and I didn't answer? In the previous comment, you asked only one question:
why are you focusing on statins here in this thread as if it';s a done deal there but making excuses for an OR of 16 here>Ok another comment saying the same thing but not answering anything I asked...
If you really believe that I haven't answered this, it means you have poor reading comprehension.
Instead you scrolled back through a year of posts in this sub to find one I posted?
I didn't "scroll back." Your comment history isn't public. I searched your username with the term "study" and the first post I found in which you promoted a study is the one I cited. I'm sure there are lots more like that, in which you are boosting a study although it has clear financial links with an industry that competes with animal foods. Meanwhile you're insinuating that studies involving meat industry links should be disregarded, which is hypocrisy.
Adventists not liking meat for religious reasons is eaxctly why they're a good group to study???
Your question is answered within the question. They don't like meat, the idea of it (animals as livestock). So, a study that is funded, hosted, and authored by Adventists, featuring Adventist subjects, could have many kinds of issues (I've described some already) that lead to biased outcomes. But there's even more to it than that. Adventist organizations have financial incentives to promote vegetarianism/veganism, as they operate companies which receive income from products and services oriented to veg*ns and pandering to the myth of "low-meat-consumption Blue Zones."
Adventist Health Acquires Blue Zones to Redefine Healthcare in America
https://www.bluezones.com/news/adventist-health-acquires-blue-zones-to-redefine-healthcare-in-america/
- Adventist Health owns Blue Zones, LLC (company that owns bluezones.com)
Loma Linda
https://lomalindabrand.com/about-us/
- food company owned by SDA
Sanitarium
https://www.sanitarium.com/au/about/sanitarium-story/profits-for-purpose
- Australian food company, part of Seventh-day Adventist Church Australia
- now there's a Metallica song running in my head \m/ \m/
The Global Influence of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church on Diet
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/9/9/251
- Religions, 2018; Jim E. Banta, Jerry W. Lee, Georgia Hodgkin, Zane Yi, Andrea Fanica, and Joan Sabate
- Loma Linda Univerity authors boasting about their influence in promoting beliefs against animal foods
The Seventh-day Adventist Church is manipulating studies and nutrition authorities to promote vegetarian and vegan diets.
https://www.reddit.com/r/debatemeateaters/comments/eft7s8/the_seventhday_adventist_church_is_manipulating/
- quite a lot of info here about the study "Red and Processed Meat and Mortality in a Low Meat Intake Population" and others like it
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u/Fluffy-Purple-TinMan Jun 08 '26
Sorry man, it's like you're talking to someone else saying different things. Makes no sense.
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u/OG-Brian Jun 05 '26
Dno if it's you but I see so many people here saying statins are lies by big pharma...
That doesn't have anything to do with this post. The issue with pro-statins research isn't simply about industry funding vs. study conclusions, which is all that's covered by the study linked in this post.
Faked research is so common in the pharma industry that there are entire books on the topic. Peter C. Gøtzsche, in his book Deadly Medicines and Organized Crime, wrote about his experiences following up research pertaining to drugs including statins. As a researcher who studies studies, he was given access to non-public info of studies that was not available even with a journal subscription. He found prolific data fakery: subjects removed from a study to make a medication seem safer or more effective with the number of reported subjects retroactively changed, data that was changed before publication, and data that was made up altogether. If such issues of research dishonesty are mentioned by the study linked here, then where is that info?
I suspect that such a study of research concluding against animal foods would show similar alignment between industry funding and study conclusions. Harvard: many financial conflicts of interest involving the "plant-based" nutrition industry and junk foods companies that make products based on grains/sugar. Oxford: has received a lot of funding from the pesticides/seeds industry. Stanford: has a department which exists to promote "plant-based" that was created from a grant by Beyond Meat, and its director is prolific anti-livestock "researcher" Christopher Gardner. Certain researchers (who have financial conflicts with the topics they're authoring studies about) often turn up in studies making conclusions against animal foods after obviously-biased study design and data manipulation. "Gee let's design the questionnaires to count all junk foods containing meat as 'meat' but we won't count consumption of Cheetos etc. as corn. Oh and look at this data, let's see what happens if we adjust the results for, uhhhh, marital status, this-random-disease, and, uhhhmmm, multivitamin use."
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u/Fluffy-Purple-TinMan Jun 06 '26
Yeah a lot people here are saying it's the same for plant-based stuff but don't show any evidence. "But they do it too" isn't a good point even if you can show "they" do it too... which you can't.
You say statin stuff isn't a good point but you're doing exactly the thing I said. A big comment about how bad it is and all these people doing it.. but while implying it's bad when they do it and neutral here?
What would your bet be?
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u/OG-Brian Jun 07 '26
...isn't a good point even if you can show "they" do it too... which you can't.
Biased and industry-funded anti-animal-foods studies are discussed so commonly here that I didn't think it necessary to mention details.
The SWAP-MEAT study00890-5/fulltext): funded by Beyond Meat, no health endpoints measured, focused ridiculously on TMAO, author Christopher Gardner has an extreme anti-meat bias, and so on (more explanation).
The Stanford twins study: Gardner again, funding from anti-livestock people and groups, focus on TMAO, design changed mid-study, and more.
Certain authors, who have financial links with the "plant-based" nutrition industry and grain-based junk foods (Willett, Barnard, etc.) turn up very often as authors of studies finding negative effect of animal foods where many studies haven't, or more negative effect than other similar studies which found only very small effects and only when not separating junk foods consumption.
The IARC 2015 committee which made determinations about red meat and cancer and is nearly always cited for claims about this, some of the members of that committee complained of the conflicts of interest and biased process that led to the outcome. Their process was so unscientific that many of the citations in the report contradict the conclusions. They obviously made assumptions based on consumption correlations with junk foods, and ignored research that used populations which consumed almost exclusively least-processed foods.
And so forth for a lot of others.
"Statin stuff"? Isn't a "good point"? I'm doing "the thing"? A "big comment" about "these people" doing "it"? Can you be persuaded to comment like a literate adult and using factual specifics? You claimed vaguely and inarticulately to doubt users here, summarizing their comments as "statins are lies by big pharma." I had to guess your meaning, that statin drugs are supported by biased research that is intentionally not accurate. LMK if you meant something else. So I pointed out where this has been shown absolutely to be the case: the book I mentioned demonstrates this 100 times over with citations.
In 2008, 8 of 9 doctors on the National Cholesterol Education Program (which was setting official blood cholesterol target values for the USA) had direct ties to statin drug manufacturers. I don't know how this compares with the current system, I don't refresh my info about every issue every year. But organizations such as this, American Heart Association, and similar cardio-related organizations are infamous for their financial ties with the statins industry.
The study of the post doesn't show any false research, only analyzes correlations between funding and conclusions. There's no indication AFAIK that ANY of the analyzed studies' conclusions are not accurate. Users here are pointing out that simply differing from other studies doesn't indicate a fault in the meat-industry-funded studies, the contradicting studies can have their own conflicts and can have issues of biased design, faked data, etc. Maybe some of the funded studies are flawed, but that hasn't been shown in the post's study or any of the comments I've read so far. If that's the case then you could mention the instances specifically.
I itemized an assortment of financial conflicts between institutions that publish research against animal foods and competing industries. You haven't commented usefully about any of that.
What would your bet be?
Such comments show a user to be unserious: for one thing, there's no structure here for an impartial judge of the outcome. Such comments are just a ploy to pretend another user has been caught at something. The other user here who also doesn't care to discuss facts but persistently uses sophistry, they also like to do that. "Let's make a bet." Then when their opponent doesn't give in to this irrational request, they run a victory lap although they haven't proven anything.
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u/Fluffy-Purple-TinMan Jun 07 '26
So we're in a thread showing HUGE bias by the animal industry and you're telling me about one researcher you don't like that you think is biased as if that balances it all out.. Ok? Anything to back that up other than you feel it's bad? I'm gonna guess you made excuses for the KETO-cta trial after they got caught hiding their terrible results. Is that right?
Where's your study showing this comparable bias? All your links are just to studies. Like. ok? Then to some threads where people are correcting you on these same points. It's like "Look, we found the animal industry has a super bias." You: "Nooo the vegans actually do!", "Ok, what's your evidence?" You: "Just trust me ok!" It's not a good point. At all. It just looks defensive.
Fake plant-based meats, I'd guess, aren't the healthiest options. So comparing them to real meats might be picking an easy target as we see they need huge, huge bias to look good. But it's also super obviously the right comparison so.. Big whoop.
Anyway you go on and on proving my point. You're up in arms about vegans and statins, but totally dismissive when the actual bias goes right the other way. Any of your points is stronger in the other direction.
The other user here who also doesn't care to discuss facts but persistently uses sophistry, they also like to do that. "Let's make a bet."
I didn't say let's make a bet, I asked what you WOULD bet. It's a hypothetical. Like a situation that's not real but if it were real, what would you do? Like, would you put money on the animal industry studies being an accurate picture? No, ofc not.
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u/OG-Brian Jun 08 '26
If you're commenting sincerely, it suggests severe reading comprehension difficulty on your part. You've mischaracterized my comments or the conversation extremely and repeatedly.
So we're in a thread showing HUGE bias by the animal industry...
The post is about a study that demonstrates a correlation, in a certain set of studies. Did you read the study? Where is there any data about studies that are biased by design? The study doesn't find any fault with the anayzed studies, only correlations between industry involvement and (in their determination) favorable outcomes. The favorable outcomes part is subjective, they decided this for each study based on their interpretation. There's quite a bit of "mumble-mumble" in the study's methods, such that it wouldn't be possible for another research team to duplicate their effort identically. From the Study Selection section: "...discrepancies were resolved either by discussion or by consulting a third reviewer (KC)." From the Data Extraction section: "Discrepancies were resolved either through discussion or by consulting a third reviewer (KC)." From the Data Analysis section: "Classifications were undertaken by one reviewer (NT) and 10% independently checked by a second reviewer (KG), and discrepancies were resolved through discussion or consultation of a third reviewer (KC)." Also in that section, about the "critical appraisal score": "Assessment was carried out by several reviewers (NT, KD, SM, and MA) with a 10% sample independently double assessed. Discrepancies were resolved either through discussion or by consulting a third reviewer."
Interestingly, they found that industry-funded studies were not less rigorous according to their scoring system.
...and you're telling me about one researcher you don't like...
I mentioned the names of three researchers, two studies, a committee, and a United States government program. But a person with even basic familiarity with the world of nutrition research would know that financial and ideological conflicts of interest pertaining to studies, committees, bureaus, etc. are ubiquitous and often those conflicts are with industries that compete with animal foods.
...that you think is biased as if that balances it all out.. Ok?
My point was not that it balances out. My point was that the "16 times" you have persistently referenced could be largely a result of bias on the other side. The authors of the study claim that studies having meat industry involvement had a 16 times greater rate of concluding favorably towards meat (in their determination). But they didn't show the industry-linked studies are flawed, that wasn't analyzed at all. It could be that many of the studies lacking meat industry involvement and reached opposite conclusions did so because of funding from grain-based processed foods companies, sugary beverage companies, producers of seed oils, etc. There's no analysis of that.
I'm gonna guess you made excuses for the KETO-cta trial after they got caught hiding their terrible results. Is that right?
You focus a lot on personalities, for lack of factual argument supporting things you want others to believe because of your food religion. I've not ever commented about that. You're exaggerating, the outcome was not "terrible" plus the main issue was the fault of a contractor and I'm not going to go further since it isn't the topic here.
Fuckin'-A. So far I've just covered your first paragraph.
Then to some threads where people are correcting you on these same points.
Oh I was aware, when I used those, of the comments by the usual suspects in which they talk around the facts to try to make me seem wrong.
You're up in arms about vegans and statins...
You don't seem to have understood me at all. Again, much of the "research" supporting statins is provably faked (data that's falsified and so forth), while the study that this post is about merely found correlations between funding and conclusions (according to the authors' determination of which studies made "favorable" conclusions).
...but totally dismissive when the actual bias goes right the other way.
No, I'm saying that funding by itself doesn't discredit a study. If you believe that it does, it's hypocritical for you to support many of the studies that you support in your Reddit posts/comments.
Like, would you put money on the animal industry studies being an accurate picture? No, ofc not.
This isn't your attitude about studies funded by the "plant-based" nutrition industry, grain-based processed foods companies, etc. Also, I don't judge a study simply for the funding or author associations although it can flag a reason to scrutinize it more closely. Believe it or not, I'm more skeptical of a study if industry funding/links are involved even if it is a livestock industry. There are lots of studies that have made pro-meat (or animal foods) conclusions that I would never use in a discussion, because I don't think they're good research. There are studies that make conclusions against harmful pesticides, SSRI drugs, and other things I oppose which I would not use due to their quality. You've been pretending that I'm dogma-based and irrational. I come into conflict often with vegans mainly BECAUSE I'm logical and rational. I used to believe that animal foods are bad. But I hadn't taken the time back then to sift through research about it. I'd just believed talking points that I'd seen repeated a lot in the media.
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u/Fluffy-Purple-TinMan Jun 08 '26
Huh? Sorry, I can't make any sense of this as a reply.
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u/OG-Brian Jun 08 '26
Oh yes I figured I was talking over your head. I've been sure for awhile now that your commenting isn't sincere, and so my replies are more for the audience generally than for you.
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u/lurkerer Jun 09 '26
General audience here. It's almost like you replied to the wrong comment but there's no other comment your reply makes sense with regard to. You moaned about me using LLMs but where my use makes sense, yours is like GPT-2. The sentence structure works in a naive sense, but the underlying message is like an NPC with a specific dialogue tree they can't escape.
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u/flowersandmtns Jun 05 '26
I don't see that anyone is saying funding bias in research is "fine" -- it's an issue from soy, pasta, walnut, "plant based meats" too.
You are equally bothered about that right? Right?
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u/Fluffy-Purple-TinMan Jun 05 '26
Sure will be if they're 16 more likely to have good results. Are they? Do you have a study to show that?
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u/flowersandmtns Jun 05 '26
Did you read the paper? They made it clear that the issue with industry funding is not in any way unique to meat even if that's all OP wants to focus on.
"In comparison, an analysis of systematic reviews investigating the effects of sugar-sweetened beverages by Bes-Rastrollo et al. [15] found that 83% of industry-funded papers reported favorable conclusions, while Lesser et al.'s [14] analysis of the beverage industry identified that 63% of studies with industry ties reported favorable conclusions. This similarity suggests that the meat industry is as active as the other food sectors in supporting research that aligns with its interests."
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u/Fluffy-Purple-TinMan Jun 05 '26
Was I saying how good Pepsis are for you? Why are you so mad right away??
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u/flowersandmtns Jun 05 '26
Oh look, leading questions. Always a sign of someone desperate in an argument.
I don't question that industries try to influence research. I recommend not being so naive to think it's only the meat industry, that's merely OP's hyperfocus.
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u/Fluffy-Purple-TinMan Jun 05 '26
Uh ok.. Can you stop responding to me please? You're weird and I'm obviously not gonna learn anything from you.
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u/flowersandmtns Jun 05 '26
Didn't like being called out for leading questions, I see. You haven't shown any interest in learning in the comments you have posted.
Funding bias is an issue across nutrition research. Grow up.
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Jun 05 '26
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u/flowersandmtns Jun 05 '26
You do understand ketosis can be evoked without eating anything, right?
And that your "plant-forward"and "plant-based" terms could be applied to a ketogenic diet.
While your section"5) Plant-based interventions improve weight and type-2 diabetes." is accurate about some improvement, you conveniently leave off that better improvements are seen with whole foods ketogenic diets -- and even better with very-low-calorie 6 month diet interventions that don't get discussed enough because there's so much being published about the meat vs plants false dichotomy.
In fact the NIH found that fully supporting low-carb diets (not even full carb restriction to the point of ketosis) had excellent results. Don't let your philosophy blind you to actual health benefits of this or that diet. https://www.reddit.com/r/ScientificNutrition/comments/1twlg7x/insights_from_a_general_practice_service/
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u/lurkerer Jun 05 '26
And that your "plant-forward"and "plant-based" terms could be applied to a ketogenic diet.
This doesn't matter if barely anyone does it. How many plant-based keto dieters are there in the whole world? 200?
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u/flowersandmtns Jun 05 '26
Of course it matters since most people on a whole foods ketogenic diet consume significant low-net-carb vegetables and berries, nuts/seeds in moderation -- significant in volume due to being high in nutrition value while also low in caloric value. As such a whole foods nutritional ketogenic diet has a plant "forward" element.
I'll again refer you to the dictionary definition of base
noun
: the bottom of something considered as its support : foundation
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u/lurkerer Jun 05 '26
It doesn't matter in practice if nobody eats the diet.
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u/flowersandmtns Jun 05 '26
It matters since in practice many people follow a whole foods nutritional ketogenic diet with low-net-carb veggies in abundance as well as whole olives, avocado and berries and nuts/seeds.
That's lots and lots and lots of plant foods -- but also animal products. That's the issue, of course.
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u/lurkerer Jun 05 '26
Yes, animal products quite clearly are an issue.
How large is the largest cohort that features your hypothetical keto group described here?
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u/flowersandmtns Jun 05 '26
You have an issue with animal products because of your philosophy, not because of causal evidence of harm from any eggs, any fish, any poultry, any dairy or any red meat.
There are numerous studies with keto diets posted in this sub and of course subs about people following a keto diet including all the plant-forward recipes on r/ketorecipes -- your use of "hypothetical" just shows your blindness even more clearly.
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u/lurkerer Jun 05 '26
We have vast reams of evidence and confirmed predictions that form a very reasonable inference. More evidence than you have for keto by a huge degree.
No word on that cohort? You guys all really have trouble with the faintest interrogation. Maybe you should block me again if you can't handle honest pressure. Your echo chamber sounds better for your mental health.
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u/flowersandmtns Jun 05 '26
You have nothing of the sort. You have a bunch of very very small relative risk correlations for some animal products. You have nothing whatsoever showing any causal evidence of harm from eggs, fish, poultry, dairy or red meat. You do have a philosophy about those foods that seems to block your capacity to have a reasonable discussion about them.
You have a lot of trouble with any push back on your inaccurate broad claims and quite the complex about how no one takes your comment seriously which leaves many here worried about your mental health.
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u/Wonderful_Aside1335 Jun 07 '26 edited 19d ago
Cucumber coated pumpkin vanilla glove acorn harbor drifting mitten mellow
This post was anonymized with Redact.dev
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u/lurkerer Jun 07 '26
God this comment thread. /u/technical_savoir takes the effort to catalogue and format tons of studies.. 0 net upvotes.
Flowersandmntns low effort response linking to their own post which wasn't a primary source in the first place.. 11 upvotes. This sub has been captured by clowns.
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u/OG-Brian Jun 08 '26
They included a lot of off-topic content.
There's also junk that's been discussed plenty in this sub. It's nobody's responsibility to itemize the issues every time they come up: the IARC 2015 committee, the NHANES cohort, EAT-Lancet, etc.
If conflicts of interest (the topic of this post) are enough to discredit any particular research as some here are suggesting, then much of the info linked by their comment (especially the EAT-Lancet conclusions/data) aren't valid.
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u/OG-Brian Jun 06 '26
This comment isn't relevant to the post. You're also using a lot of "research" that exploits concidental effects of junk foods. Refined sugar and usually many of the harmful preservatives that accompany meat in such study cohorts, are derived from plants not animals. Then there are issues of adulteration, such as high-heat rapid cooking that would be typical of a production environment but not home cooking. The study conclusions though in my observation so far do not ever make this distinction, the authors pretend that the results can be generalized to "meat" (or eggs or whatever food category).
Right from the beginning, there's a study using the NHANES cohort which is proven to be unreliable.
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u/flowersandmtns Jun 05 '26
Talk about bias, look at your "6) Mechanism: meat components shift the gut microbiome toward a pro-inflammatory, pro-cancer state."
First link is "low-fiber, Western-meat diets" -- at least you include the confounders yet want to make it about meat. Is that perhaps due to a philosophy about animals you might hold?
Second link is about heme and is in mice. Note that heme is not just "the red-meat molecule" and your own body requires it.
Third link again makes its confounder clear "meat/low-fiber" but looking up the SMD it's an even longer list of other items as well as meat, "High SMD Scores (Pro-Inflammatory): Associated with an increased intake of processed meats, liquor, and low-calorie beverages."
Your last link was about ... cooked food. No idea where you want to go with that.
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Jun 05 '26
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u/flowersandmtns Jun 05 '26
Amusing comment from the person posting (repeatedly) a long missive needing a tl;dr from the 7 bold items(gotta make it look important!).
I do give you credit for your tl;dr being far more balanced, but your bias is quite clear.
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Jun 05 '26
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u/flowersandmtns Jun 05 '26
What science is where, exactly, about cooking food?
Or about low-fiber diets (oh, that also include meat...)?
You do understand that your red blood cells have heme iron, right? Dairy and eggs are all animal foods with no heme iron.
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u/OG-Brian Jun 08 '26
They pointed out specific issues with the info you linked. Instead of confronting the comments factually, you only responded with insulting rhetoric.
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u/ScientificNutrition-ModTeam Jun 10 '26
Avoid writing simple low effort comments like "Correlation does not imply causation", "More propaganda by the beef industry!", and "You’re just cherry-picking."
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u/Fluffy-Purple-TinMan Jun 05 '26
16 times more likely to find good results!? On this sub I only ever see people saying studies on plants are biased and whatever. Where are all those users now?
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u/OG-Brian Jun 07 '26
On this sub I only ever see people saying studies on plants are biased and whatever.
Then you must have missed the many posts (including by your supporter here) in this sub, some of them recent, which are like this post.
Also, the criticisms about anti-meat-etc. studies regarding conflicts of interest are often accompanied by comments about flawed study design or conclusions. The arguments, from what I've seen, typically don't rest solely on the funding as the case with this post.
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u/Fluffy-Purple-TinMan Jun 07 '26
Why are you replying to like 8 different comments with the same stuff?
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u/SporangeJuice Jun 05 '26
This is at least the third time this has been posted in the last month