New Study Says If You Eat Red Meat You Will Die

[Reub]

A new study claims that eating even small portions of any kind of red meat will hasten your demise. What's a guy to do?

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/mar/13 ... t-20120313

"any amount and any type -- appears to significantly increase the risk of premature death, according to a long-range study that examined the eating habits and health of more than 110,000 adults for more than 20 years.

For instance, adding just one 3-ounce serving of unprocessed red meat -- picture a piece of steak no bigger than a deck of cards -- to one's daily diet was associated with a 13% greater chance of dying during the course of the study."

[Bean]

Everything can kill you.  I accept the "steak" risk.

[dualstow]

I saw that in the WSJ. It's not a great study.
Grass fed beef keeps me going.

[rocketdog]

A new study claims that eating even small portions of any kind of red meat will hasten your demise. What's a guy to do?

Well, you could do what I did over 20 years ago and become vegetarian.  Amazing health benefits*.  I used to get strep throat once or twice a year ever since childhood.  Once I became vegetarian I never got strep throat again.  When I moved in with my now wife and started preparing vegetarian meals at home, the improvements in her health became apparent very quickly.  Her doctor even asked her why her cholesterol and blood pressure had dropped so much. 

Once you get through the initial transition and learn new cooking and grocery shopping skills, you don't miss it a bit.  It's like quitting smoking: there's the initial withdrawal phase, but if you can get through it the cravings stop and eventually you can't believe you ever smoked in the first place. 

(* It's also far better for the environment, too.)

[iwealth]

Just out of curiosity, what are your favorite vegetarian protein sources?

[rocketdog]

Just out of curiosity, what are your favorite vegetarian protein sources?

My personal favorites are lentils, garbanzos, tofu, seitan, tempeh, Quorn (and several other "meat analogs"), yogurt, nuts, and seeds. 

You don't need to be concerned about not getting enough protein on a balanced vegetarian diet.  We don't need as much protein as most people think.  Most Americans are consuming far too much protein anyway, which leads to its own set of health problems. 

It's also not an "all-or-nothing" proposition: many people eat vegetarian meals one day per week, then eventually make it twice per week, then every other day, until animal products are no longer the mainstay of their diet.  My wife still eats fish and poultry once in a while, and even treats herself to a steak on special occasions.

If you have Netflix, check out the documentary "Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead".  It touts a juicing approach (which I don't personally do), but the health changes in the people featured are remarkable. 

[MachineGhost]

Its not so much as what you eat, but what you don't eat.

[rocketdog]

Its not so much as what you eat, but what you don't eat.

That's an equally useful way of looking at it.  After all, you have to eat something, so you can either make a list of foods "to eat" or "not to eat".  It may actually be easier for some people to look at what they're eating and then gradually phase out the most harmful (or least beneficial) foods.  Whatever works.

[moda0306]

I can't wait for Gumby to comment on this study.  Prepare to get Gumbified.

[Benko]

1. There is no one diet right for everyone.  You have to experiement and see what works best for your body.

2. SOme people can thrive on vegetarian diets.  Others (no matter what they might wish), not so much.

Most Americans are consuming far too much protein anyway,

And many vegetarians/vagans are consuming way too many carbs (and I don't mean e.g. lentils).

3.  People who don't do best on vegetarian/vegan type diets often do better on cavemanish diet i.e. higher animal protein, lower carbs, higher fat (their are people who say they can test you to see which type you do best on, but trial and error and paying attention to your body is the best way).

If you have GI tract "issues" (and you probably know if you do) you may very well do better on cavemanish/perfect dietish type diets and not so well eating veggie/vegan diet. 

4. The study looks flawed and obvoiusly didn't test e.g. hormone free/antibiotic free beef (let along grass fed). 

[Ad Orientem]

These threads are really depressing. I'm starting to think that no matter what I do there's a chance I will die one day.

[Kriegsspiel]

Utter tripe.  I *literally* just finished off some roast that I had going in the crock

EDIT... I'm not dead, I was just knocked unconcious by the red meat.

[Xan]

Krieg, your long poo seems to have broken this page!  (that sounded gross)

I'd recommend going with NO CARRIER next time.  :-)

[MachineGhost]

I'd recommend going with NO CARRIER next time.  :-)

Well, the dead do poo...

[dualstow]

1. There is no one diet right for everyone.

Not even pure zero? http://news.drpeppersnapple.com/sites/d ... etRite.jpg
Drat, krieg's long poo made me remove an icon from my desktop. Must fix it...

[flyingpylon]

These threads are really depressing. I'm starting to think that no matter what I do there's a chance I will die one day.

+1 

[Straight Ays]

I'm still in awe of zero calorie food and drink.  It's as if they defy physics and the laws of thermo dynamics.  So in short, they scare me.

[doodle]

Seems like the problem with red meat isn't related to fat and cholesterol, but a chemical called TMAO...

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/08/healt ... ef=general

The researchers had come to believe that what damaged hearts was not just the thick edge of fat on steaks, or the delectable marbling of their tender interiors. In fact, these scientists suspected that saturated fat and cholesterol made only a minor contribution to the increased amount of heart disease seen in red-meat eaters. The real culprit, they proposed, was a little-studied chemical that is burped out by bacteria in the intestines after people eat red meat. It is quickly converted by the liver into yet another little-studied chemical called TMAO that gets into the blood and increases the risk of heart disease.

That, at least, was the theory. So the question that morning was: Would a burst of TMAO show up in people’s blood after they ate steak? And would the same thing happen to a vegan who had not eaten meat for at least a year and who consumed the same meal?

The answers were: yes, there was a TMAO burst in the five meat eaters; and no, the vegan did not have it. And TMAO levels turned out to predict heart attack risk in humans, the researchers found. The researchers also found that TMAO actually caused heart disease in mice. Additional studies with 23 vegetarians and vegans and 51 meat eaters showed that meat eaters normally had more TMAO in their blood and that they, unlike those who spurned meat, readily made TMAO after swallowing pills with carnitine.

[Benko]

Someone sent me the TMAO info.  Problem is, carnitine is essential to the body i.e. you cannot live without it.  There are also studies showing beneficial effects of carnitine e.g.

http://examine.com/supplements/L-Carnitine/  if you scroll down you'll see tabulated >20 STUDIES which  show effects of carnitine. 

BOTTOM LINE: we don't know enough, and certainly not enough to avoid beef (at least good quality e.g. hormone free anti-biotic free beef.  Grass fed is likely better).

[Jan Van]

So now it's TMAO? OMG. LMAO.

This sounds a lot easier to me: the 5:2 diet, two days of 500(women) or 600(men) calories, five days whatever you want.
From the documentary on PBS last week: http://www.kpbs.org/news/2013/apr/02/ea ... el-mosley/

[MachineGhost]

The answers were: yes, there was a TMAO burst in the five meat eaters; and no, the vegan did not have it. And TMAO levels turned out to predict heart attack risk in humans, the researchers found. The researchers also found that TMAO actually caused heart disease in mice. Additional studies with 23 vegetarians and vegans and 51 meat eaters showed that meat eaters normally had more TMAO in their blood and that they, unlike those who spurned meat, readily made TMAO after swallowing pills with carnitine.

Isn't that the same critter that I posted about before that converts lecithin into a "heart damaging" substance?  Either way, I think this just points out to how the biodome is increasing in importance in science.  So take your probiotics!

[Benko]

Isn't that the same critter that I posted about before that converts lecithin into a "heart damaging" substance?

Yes.

However take your probiotics may not be enough.  Apparerntly in the relatively recent past it was discovered that different groups  of people had different normal gut bacteria.  So it may be important to take the right normal bacteria for you.  And since you've looked at flora supplements, you know that there are many different healthy bacteria strains to chose from.  One company even includes flora normally found  in dirt, since the food humans normally ate had dirt and dirt flora on it.

[Reub]

New from Kresser (Only Because Gumby Must Be Busy):

"The study we’re discussing here found that those who eat red meat produce TMAO, whereas vegans and vegetarians who hadn’t eaten meat for at least a year do not. The researchers claimed that this means eating red meat must alter the gut flora in a way that predisposes toward TMAO production. However, there’s another explanation that I believe is much more plausible: the red meat eaters are engaging in unhealthy behaviors that have led to dysbiosis and/or SIBO. This could include eating fewer fruits and vegetables and less soluble fiber, and more processed and refined flour, sugar and seed oils. All of these behaviors have been shown to be more common in the “average”? red meat eater, and all of them have been associated with undesirable changes in the gut microbiota. (10, 11, 12) In other words, the problem isn’t the red meat, it’s the gut bacteria. This is supported by the finding in the study that the red meat eaters did not produce TMAO after a course of antibiotics. It is also supported by data indicating that a breakdown in the intestinal barrier, which occurs in dysbiosis and SIBO, may increase heart disease risk by elevating the number of circulating LDL particles in the bloodstream. (13) I will be covering this (i.e. the connection between LDL particles and heart disease) in my updated series on heart disease."

http://chriskresser.com/red-meat-and-tm ... t-the-meat

[MachineGhost]

From the documentary on PBS last week: http://www.kpbs.org/news/2013/apr/02/ea ... el-mosley/

This is fascinatingly repulsive:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRJMxZgtlfE

My brain is trying to figure out the why T&A is deemed necessary at the restaurant.  Isn't the heart attack potential food not enough?  Sheesh!

[RuralEngineer]

Red meat has been a significant part of most human diets for hundreds of thousands of years. Forgive me if I don't rush to cut it from my diet.

Most of the red meat I eat now is grass fed with some grain finishing and I'm in the process of switching to grass fed lamb. This is supplemented by wild game when in season. Not sure how my gut bacteria is holding up, but the meat quality is pretty good.