Big study links red meat diet to cancer

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Trelow:
lol

If God didn’t want us to eat animals then He wouldn’t have made them out of meat.
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Ever wonder why he also made you out of meat? :hmmm:
 
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Veronica1952:
Maybe it will increase the risk of colon cancer, maybe not. Why take a chance? Its not fun getting your colon re-sected. Whats more reducing or eliminating meat from your diet will help reduce the pain and suffering that animals have to endure so you can have filet mignon on your plate. Take a look at this site and see what’s really going on…www.slaughterhousecam.com.
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Hi Veronica:

Nice try. You are of course right. But most of the twerps on this thread don’t even seem to care about their own welfare. GLUTTONY, SLOTH, and SELF-INDULGENCE is their bag. So it’s hardly likely they would be inclined to show any concern for animals.

:bowdown2:
 
A key word is “moderation”. It is OK to eat meat, and I do so frequently, although not with every meal. There are some nutrients that aren’t really found in vegetables, or are only found in minute quantities. I’m thinking of Vitamin B12, which is only found in appreciable quantities in animal products. Those who practice the Vegan diet have been known to develop a condition called Pernicious Anemia as a result of depleting their B12 stores. This takes a long time to develop, but it is a real risk.

Finally, I look at how God made us. If you look at the jaw and tooth structure of various animals, you can tell whether they are vegetarian, carnivores, or omnivores (both vegetarian and carnivorous). Our tooth and jaw structure conforms to that of omnivores. Who am I to argue with how God made us?

Now who was it who was grilling up those steaks? I’m getting hungry…
 
Should potato chips carry a carcinogenic warning label?
That’s what some California attorneys are urging.

They say many popular brands are not listing a cancer-causing chemical present in their product.

That chemical is acrylamide. It is an industrial chemical used in plastics, pesticides and sewage treatment that also can occur when starchy foods, such as chips, are processed at high temperatures.

wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44832
 
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HagiaSophia:
Should potato chips carry a carcinogenic warning label?
That’s what some California attorneys are urging.

They say many popular brands are not listing a cancer-causing chemical present in their product.

That chemical is acrylamide. It is an industrial chemical used in plastics, pesticides and sewage treatment that also can occur when starchy foods, such as chips, are processed at high temperatures.

wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44832
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A word about how carcinogenicity studies are conducted. Typically a particular strain of rat or mouse (and often one bred to be specifically susceptible to particulr types of tumors) is fed large quantities of a particular substance daily for 2 years. How large? Often thousands of times the expected dose a human might anticipate to be exposed to. At the end of the 2 years, all the animals are killed and a complete pathologic examination is performed. A particular chemical is considered carcinogenic if a greater amount of tumors is found in the treated group than in the control group, and especially if there is a dose-related increase in the number of tumors (those dosed higher getting more tumors).

There are a couple of problems with this approach, however.
  1. People are not mice. Different animals are susceptible to different substances, and the differences can be dramatic. Let’s take dioxin. Now guinea pigs exposed to this substance will develop a severe reaction called chloracne and will die at relatively low levels of exposure. Hamsters, on the other hand could be exposed to levels 1000 times higher before they run into difficulties. Now, extrapolating from two closely-related rodents to humans is even more problematic. One example: A common class of antibiotics used to treat urinary tract infections causes thyroid tumors in rodents of all stripes. When tested in rhesus monkeys? Nothing, no tumors.
  2. Extrapolation - It takes a great deal of stretching of the data to look at harmful effects in rodents exposed to extremely high levels of a substance, and then conclude that humans exposed to extremely low levels will be subject to the same thing. In toxicology, the dosage determines the effect. We are exposed to thousands of toxins every day without even realizing it, but because they are in minute quantities, we are not harmed. Even organic produce is chock-full of naturally occurring pesticides that the plants themselves produce along with other substances picked up naturally in the environment. Potatos contain arsenic, for instance. In fact, the level of natural pesticides occurring in produce easily swamps the effects of man-made pesticides. One group of carcinogens that is often overlooked are viruses. Viruses are responsible for nearly all of the cervical cancer that occurs each year. Even if you pull a Howard Hughes, it’s unlikely you can avoid them.
  3. How was the safe level determined? Literally, a bunch of scientists sit around a table and produce a number off of the top of their heads, based on what they think a “safe” level would be. I am not making this up. There is nothing magical about the numbers the EPA comes up with for “safe” levels. There may be very little actual science behind it.
  4. Finally, get any thought out of your mind about a distinction between “natural” and “artificial”. As far as your body is concerned, an aspirin molecule is an aspirin molecule - that one comes from a plant and the other a test tube makes no difference. It only “sees” an aspirin molecule. Many artificial things are beneficial, and many natural things are harmful. The distinction is useless.
 
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INRI:
Typically a particular strain of rat or mouse (and often one bred to be specifically susceptible to particulr types of tumors) is fed large quantities of a particular substance daily for 2 years. .
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See Post #6 - Item #2 :whistle:
 
BTW,
There have been other studies that have shown a connection to excessive red meat consumption and colon cancer, I’m just being critical of this one study because, given the size of the study, it’s a shame they didn’t design a better study. Chances are, if you are eating much more than 4 oz. of red meat per day, you are probably overeating as well.

Eating high fiber products appears to be protective for colon cancer, and helps limit caloric intake as well. In general, the less processed a food is, the less likely it is to have the needed nutrients removed and the less likely it is to have excessive added sugars and fats to it. It will be more satisfying from a satiety standpoint as well. Ex., compare drinking a small glass of OJ to eating an orange. Both will have the same number of calories, but the orange will have more fiber and will fill you up better. Now, I’m not one of those granola-eating, celery-chomping, will-only-buy-organic, milk-my-own-cow type of person, but avoiding overly processed foods (or at least controlling intake of them) is important for healthy living. Also, avoid anything that has listed as an ingredient the word “Cheez”…
A related topic here:
slate.com/id/2115298
 
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romano:
Hi Veronica:

Nice try. You are of course right. But most of the twerps on this thread don’t even seem to care about their own welfare. GLUTTONY, SLOTH, and SELF-INDULGENCE is their bag. So it’s hardly likely they would be inclined to show any concern for animals.

:bowdown2:
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Nice. And what’s your bag? Insulting other forum members?
 
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INRI:
As a physician and someone who has just spent the past 8 months working on carcinogenesis and toxicology, I’d like to add my :twocents:
  1. It is difficult to draw conclusions from a study until you know its methodology. I looked up the website for the study. This study involved a huge number of patients (approx. 500,000) across several different countries in Europe in a cohort-style study. So far, so good. But then we get into the nitty-gritty. How was food intake assessed? - by self-report questionnaire! Another method involved asking people what was their average frequency of eating foods for the past 12 months! Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure I could give you an average frequency for last week! Self-reports of dietary intake are notoriously unreliable and patients have been known to under-report caloric intake by as much as 50%. Some study centers in the study used food diaries, but only for 7-day periods. This, by itself nearly causes the study to be worthless.
  2. What was the statistically significance? I have yet to track this down. The report states that it is an excess of 30% risk. Yet, from an epidemiological standpoint, it’s hard to say that anything below an excess of 50% (Risk Ratio 1.5 for you stats gurus) is truly significant or that it simply reflects other confounding variables. And this study has a huge number of confounding variables. It is a cohort study, which means that you take a bunch of people, measure them at baseline, then follow them and remeasure after a certain period of time to see what has changed. Do you think there might be certain other things that differ among European nations besides diet that might explain differences? Maybe somebody from Italy might be more likely to spend time outside swimming and cycling compared to someone from, say, Norway? And we know that exercise and obesity definitely have a relation to cancer risk. Maybe one country has a lower colon cancer risk because everyone collapses from lung cancer first from all the cigarettes they are inhaling.
  3. Many of you have complained about the on-again off-again nature of the results of all these medical studies. May I suggest that you follow them a little LESS closely. Any single study is seldom definitive, although large ones are generally more important. What you look for is the weight of the evidence of several studies and the quality of the studies in question. Poorly designed studies DO make it into the medical literature, even in respectable journals. The lay press often breathlessly reports poorly designed studies. Sometimes they just read the abstract and don’t look into the body of the paper, which may contradict the abstract! (I’ve actually seen this in one paper)
  4. As for cancer prevention, here’s what I recommend (and my field is cancer, BTW):
    A. Don’t smoke
    B. Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables
    C. Watch your calories and don’t overeat. The whole carb-craze is just another fad diet. It is more important that you watch total calories than of what type.
    D. Doing B will help you with C
    E. Get regular exercise.
    F. Use sunscreen when outside for any extended period. Your skin doesn’t actually tan until you have created DNA damage.
    G. Don’t ever get old, or have bad genes. You will die of cancer if you don’t die of something else first.
    H. Odds are 1/3 of you reading this will get some sort of cancer (excluding the common skin cancers) and 1/4 of you reading this will die of cancer. Don’t look for that ratio to change. See letter G.
    I. Keep you eyes peeled for new diagnostic techniques and tests for early detection. Your best hope to survive cancer is to catch it early. That being said, see letter G.
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Many thanks for your observations, however, I would like to report that the population of Norway spends an inordinate amount of time in the outdoors, engaging in hiking, swimming, football, etc. during the summer months (July and August) and all manner of winter sports (don’t forget they call Cross-country “Nordic” skiing) during the rest of the year. The society is geared to motion. People there go to the office early, eat a quick lunch and then leave to participate in these endeavors. Likewise in many of the other Scandinavian countries. I would hazard a guess that Norwegians spend as much time exercising as any of the folks living in the Mediterranean.
 
INRI-
Thank you for your informative posts! 😃

My :twocents:- I think everything has been said to cause cancer at some point- when they got to tomatoes, I decided not to listen anymore, and just use my God given common sense!!! 😃
 
romano said:
"International scientists yesterday delivered a long-awaited verdict on red meat, concluding in a definitive study of the eating habits of half a million people that beef, lamb, pork, veal and their processed varieties such as ham and bacon, increase the risk of bowel cancer. . . . " :bigyikes:

See the full article at:

society.guardian.co.uk/cancer/story/0,8150,1506801,00.html
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This won’t stop me from eating my hamburgers, somebody pass the ketchup…:tiphat:
 
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