This trial for systematic reviews or meta-analyses was registered at PROSPERO as CRD42024525197 (https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=525197).
The issue with many of these studies is that they compare people who eat red meat to those who either avoid it specifically or don’t eat meat at all. The problem is, red meat isn’t the only variable at play. Vegans and vegetarians, in particular, are likely to have much healthier lifestyles overall than someone who eats red meat - which is more or less synonymous with the “average person.”
What I’d really like to know is the difference between red meat eaters with healthy lifestyles, compared to both the average person and those who don’t eat meat at all.
Would you be able to give examples of healthier behaviors that vegans and vegetarians perform that the general population does not?
If one made their choice to abstain from meat for ethical reasons and not health reasons I’m not sure their lifestyle would be drastically different from their counterparts, then again I’m not sure what particular behavior patterns you are referring to which could throw off studies.
On average, there are far more people among vegetarians and vegans who generally pay more attention to what they eat and don’t eat, exercise more, and likely smoke and drink alcohol less as well. Obviously, there are exceptions - but I’m talking about averages here.
If there was a study, I would volunteer. I’m an omnivore now for 20 years, after being vegetarian for about the same amount of time, never vegan. I live a reasonably healthy lifestyle but office job and do like to drink about thrice a week, only one drink (so moderate, I think) . I’m sure there are lifestyle matched vegetarians and vegans.
Personally I’m healthier but heavier (was underweight, now middle of healthy BMI which feels fat to me but I do literally feel good) with some meat in the diet but don’t eat it every day. Cholesterol was high when I was vegetarian, still is. Only thing that drops that is regular fasting, which unfortunately was a reliable migraine trigger for me.
Every study conflates high sugar consumption with meat consumption. If a pizza is considered a serving of meat, in all fairness it should also be considered a serving of plant based foods. Carbohydrates make up the bulk of pizza. And those come exclusively from plants
We know sugar is bad for health. These observational studies are useless unless they can control for sugar and carbohydrate intake as a factor.
Not to mention most of the antimeat studies are observational food surveys with weak hazard ratio outcomes.
Most annoyingly the classification of “meat” is infuriating and biased. In some of the studies any sandwich, any pizza, any sugar covered possible meat containing item counts as meat. It’s well established that sugar is very detrimental for health.
The only people avoiding sugar at large care about their health, so there is tremendous healthy user bias, and the advice for the last 50 years or so has been to avoid meat if you want to be healthy… Reinforcing the healthy user bias.
A high quality disciplined study to show the effect of meat on health would include metabolic markers like ketones, track sugar independently, and not use a once every 4 year food questionnaire.
The key to knowing if the study is serious, or sensational, is if they use relative risk or absolute risk in their findings. Nobody publishes absolute risk with respect to meat consumption…
The issue with many of these studies is that they compare people who eat red meat to those who either avoid it specifically or don’t eat meat at all. The problem is, red meat isn’t the only variable at play. Vegans and vegetarians, in particular, are likely to have much healthier lifestyles overall than someone who eats red meat - which is more or less synonymous with the “average person.”
What I’d really like to know is the difference between red meat eaters with healthy lifestyles, compared to both the average person and those who don’t eat meat at all.
Would you be able to give examples of healthier behaviors that vegans and vegetarians perform that the general population does not?
If one made their choice to abstain from meat for ethical reasons and not health reasons I’m not sure their lifestyle would be drastically different from their counterparts, then again I’m not sure what particular behavior patterns you are referring to which could throw off studies.
On average, there are far more people among vegetarians and vegans who generally pay more attention to what they eat and don’t eat, exercise more, and likely smoke and drink alcohol less as well. Obviously, there are exceptions - but I’m talking about averages here.
Did you read how any of the referenced studies were structured to confirm this assumption?
If there was a study, I would volunteer. I’m an omnivore now for 20 years, after being vegetarian for about the same amount of time, never vegan. I live a reasonably healthy lifestyle but office job and do like to drink about thrice a week, only one drink (so moderate, I think) . I’m sure there are lifestyle matched vegetarians and vegans.
Personally I’m healthier but heavier (was underweight, now middle of healthy BMI which feels fat to me but I do literally feel good) with some meat in the diet but don’t eat it every day. Cholesterol was high when I was vegetarian, still is. Only thing that drops that is regular fasting, which unfortunately was a reliable migraine trigger for me.
Most of the studies include processed meat like salami, which has known carcinogens and conflates the result to all red meat.
This particular linked study, that is the basis for this thread, limited itself to only unprocessed red meat.
Every study conflates high sugar consumption with meat consumption. If a pizza is considered a serving of meat, in all fairness it should also be considered a serving of plant based foods. Carbohydrates make up the bulk of pizza. And those come exclusively from plants
We know sugar is bad for health. These observational studies are useless unless they can control for sugar and carbohydrate intake as a factor.
But they can, lol
Oh that is great news, can you point me at that epidemical study?
Not to mention most of the antimeat studies are observational food surveys with weak hazard ratio outcomes.
Most annoyingly the classification of “meat” is infuriating and biased. In some of the studies any sandwich, any pizza, any sugar covered possible meat containing item counts as meat. It’s well established that sugar is very detrimental for health.
The only people avoiding sugar at large care about their health, so there is tremendous healthy user bias, and the advice for the last 50 years or so has been to avoid meat if you want to be healthy… Reinforcing the healthy user bias.
A high quality disciplined study to show the effect of meat on health would include metabolic markers like ketones, track sugar independently, and not use a once every 4 year food questionnaire.
The key to knowing if the study is serious, or sensational, is if they use relative risk or absolute risk in their findings. Nobody publishes absolute risk with respect to meat consumption…
https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/red-meat#potential-harm