There Is No Safe Amount of Processed Meat To Eat, According to New Research (cnn.com) 69
A new study analyzing data from more than 60 previous research projects has found evidence that there is "no safe amount" of processed meat consumption -- so much so that even small daily portions are being linked to increased disease risk.
The research, published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine, examined connections between processed meats, sugar-sweetened beverages and trans fatty acids and the risk of type 2 diabetes, colorectal cancer and ischemic heart disease. People who ate as little as one hot dog daily showed an 11% greater risk of type 2 diabetes and 7% increased risk of colorectal cancer compared to those who consumed none. Drinking approximately one 12-ounce soda per day was associated with an 8% increase in type 2 diabetes risk and 2% increased risk of ischemic heart disease.
The research, published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine, examined connections between processed meats, sugar-sweetened beverages and trans fatty acids and the risk of type 2 diabetes, colorectal cancer and ischemic heart disease. People who ate as little as one hot dog daily showed an 11% greater risk of type 2 diabetes and 7% increased risk of colorectal cancer compared to those who consumed none. Drinking approximately one 12-ounce soda per day was associated with an 8% increase in type 2 diabetes risk and 2% increased risk of ischemic heart disease.
What about not eating it daily? (Score:3)
Wouldn't the occasional gagger not kill you in your sleep?
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If the politicians really cared about illegal immigration they would start jailing the CEOs of the companies who employ them.
Immigration Reform [Re: What about not eating...] (Score:1, Interesting)
Yes, the immigration system needs reform in the US. There had been unified parties in Washington for both Democrats and Republicans to fix it and they haven't.
There was a bipartisan immigration reform bill hammered out between Republican and Democratic Senators in 2024 and brought to the Senate for approval, the "Border Act of 2024."
After it was brought to the floor, it was opposed by Donald Trump (who at the time held no political office), because he didn't want immigration reform because he wanted to make it an issue in his campaign.
Re: Immigration Reform [Re: What about not eating. (Score:2)
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Illegal immagration is abused for cheap labor, and is likely below minimum wage. It is a form of slave labor intentionally leveraging sometimes lack of status. It takes advantage of desperate people.
Creation of new classes of people that have reduced rights, reduced ability to petition, and most importantly no legal authority to form a union; all part of standard practice here in America for well over a hundred years.
The exploitation of labor is not precisely equivalent to slavery. The hyperbole is useful for attention grabbing rhetoric, but falls apart when people start picking at the definition(s) of slavery.
Ultimately an illegal immigrant has more choices than a slave. They can walk away and go back
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There's people that are convinced they need to eat meat three times a day at every meal.
So - 9 times a day? That does seem a bit excessive.
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A New Jersey Italian hogie gets you 3 or 4 meats in one bite
Re: What about not eating it daily? (Score:2)
Re:What about not eating it daily? (Score:4, Informative)
That was my question too. Who eats a hot dog every day? Certainly not me, maybe one every week or two, at most. "No safe amount" seems a little over the top.
Note study is only about *processed* meat (Score:2)
That's not to say a side of beef or pork can't be improved. Cattle and pigs can be raised and fed much better. But these sides and the steaks and ground beef produced from them locally are
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Yeah "processed" is pretty vague, in general. Technically, processing is anything you do when you follow a recipe. But the specific foods covered by this study, were hamburgers and hot dogs. Of course, there are grades of processed meat, even grades of hot dogs. This study claims that the grade of processed meat didn't matter much.
Personally, I suspect that the type of processing, and the specific ingredients used, is more important than "processing" per se. For example, Wonder bread is nowhere near as heal
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Actually there are some somewhat agreed upon meanings of terms like "highly processed". You can see the definitions here: https://nutritionsource.hsph.h... [harvard.edu]
For example, minimally processed food has flavorings added, is cut, cooked, etc. Ultraprocessed food is 2-3 levels higher, with shelf life, texture, emulsification, and various other types of changes.
I suspect that the type of processing, and the specific ingredients used, is more important than "processing" per se.
Maybe in some cases. But blending fruit turns it into candy. The ingredients in a soda (especially the new ones with added fiber) are substantially the same
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I was mistaken: minimally processed food does not have salt added. I think this is a bit of a silly distinction, as you will add salt when you eat savory foods and still have an ideal amount of dietary sodium.
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FWIW, we raised cows and pigs in college days. Had them locally butchered. Best meats ever. If you get the opportunity to live in an agricultural area, give it a try.
Back when my in-laws were still alive (and still actively farming), we'd routinely go halves with them - splitting a cow and a pig. Not only was the meat so much better-tasting than most store-bought meat, it also ended up being significantly cheaper per pound.
Re:What about not eating it daily? (Score:4, Informative)
"No safe amount" has a specific, technical meaning. It means your risk increases monotonically with the amount you eat. Eating a tiny amount only increases your risk by a tiny bit, but it still increases it.
Contrast that with things where your risk doesn't increase at all until you pass a threshold amount. We say the threshold is the safe amount, that is, the amount you can eat without any increased risk at all.
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This reminds me of an episode of The Whitest Kids U' Know. In the skit was a chubby fellow that kept lying to his doctor about how many hot dogs he eats a day. (not actually that funny of a show - just relevant)
Re: What about not eating it daily? (Score:2)
Had to find that. Lol!
https://youtu.be/vaAF_GAc3Mk [youtu.be]
Totally relate if I eat junk at all I overeat it.
A term with multiple nuanced meanings (Score:3)
If food has been changed from its natural state, then it is processed. Bake an apple pie, that's processed. You cooked the apples with added sugar and spices, perhaps in a crust made of flour and shortening.
Minimally processed would be like if you bought some shelled raw almonds. It's not completely original, but it's processed in a way that added no additional ingredients.
A classic example of processed food would be canned sardines. They have added oil and salt and are cooked in their can. They are not nec
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Wouldn't the occasional gagger not kill you in your sleep?
There's some usable truth in this article. However, "no safe amount" is not accurate because very few people eat these types of food daily. Also, talking about "processed food" is not useful because the term is not obvious. They call out sugar-sweetened drinks, so that's clear. However, what is processed meat? Smoked meats? Is cutting or cooking meat considered processing? Sausage, like all sausage, including fresh ground and stuffed? Cold cuts, like all cold cuts? Jerky? Spam?
The actual paper says: [Re:What about not eati...] (Score:5, Informative)
There's some usable truth in this article.
Some. But the summary ignores this sentence from the actual paper [nature.com]'s abstract (which is a meta study, not new data):
"These associations each received two-star ratings reflecting weak relationships or inconsistent input evidence, highlighting both the need for further research and—given the high burden of these chronic diseases—the merit of continuing to recommend limiting consumption of these foods."
To its credit, the actual paper also makes a point that this is a correlation, not showing causation.
Re: The actual paper says: [Re:What about not eati (Score:2)
TFS reminds me of militant vegans who still insist that eggs are unhealthy based on poor research done in the 60s. The fools are still married to the long disproven idea that dietary cholesterol leads to cholesterolemia, and were pissed off after the FDA removed the cholesterol RDI.
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It's even worse than that. They are talking about risk chances. It's literally clickbait, and I'm not convinced the journalists these days even understand how they are fucking up and misleading. It may actually be stupidity and not malice...
So say it IS an 11 percent risk increase for X. Eating that occasional hot dog then makes your original risk for X increase BY 11% not an 11% risk.
Say for the heart attack: at your age group lets just say your baseline risk is 0.35% of you having a heart attack and kick
Let's substitute X in the equation (Score:2)
You can probably eat a tablespoon of sawdust a day without dying, perhaps as much as a quarter of a cup.
You shouldn't actually eat any sawdust though, it does you no good whatsoever.
Is there a safe amount of air to breathe? (Score:4, Insightful)
The more you breathe, the more the risk of age-related illnesses increases.
There is, of course, no other factor other than eating the hot dog that can explain diabetes, and not, say, a poverty-based lifestyle.
It's the hot dog.
My dad lived to 99 on a diet of Chinese take out, frozen pizza, cold cuts, and beer.
He was slim and still active.
Re:Is there a safe amount of air to breathe? (Score:4, Insightful)
The more you breathe, the more the risk of age-related illnesses increases. There is, of course, no other factor other than eating the hot dog that can explain diabetes, and not, say, a poverty-based lifestyle. It's the hot dog. My dad lived to 99 on a diet of Chinese take out, frozen pizza, cold cuts, and beer. He was slim and still active.
Ah yes... The "My grandfather made it to 100 drinking a liter of whiskey smoking 3 packs a day." argument. Some people get lucky. Most don't.
Re: Is there a safe amount of air to breathe? (Score:1)
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Those people are probably already dead too.
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:-P
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s/data/dad/
rant: automatic text prediction rewriting is getting worse all the time. yadda yadda yadda.
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The more you breathe, the more the risk of age-related illnesses increases.
There is, of course, no other factor other than eating the hot dog that can explain diabetes, and not, say, a poverty-based lifestyle.
It's the hot dog.
Most people who aren't at or near the poverty line don't eat a hot dog daily. That's what people eat who can't cook and can't afford take-out food. So yeah, chances are, this correlation would go away if you adjust for other risk factors like poverty.
But I'm not willing to spend $33 just to confirm that. Nothing is more useless than medical journal articles that are locked behind a paywall.
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Even after decades of pretending to be a nerd, you're still dumb enough to think that studies published in top-tier journals like Nature might not have accounted for even the most obvious confounding variables.
There are reasonable reasons to be skeptical about this study, or any individual study. However, you didn't identify one; you just spewed some recycled anti-intellectual claptrap.
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Even after decades of pretending to be a nerd, you're still dumb enough to think that studies published in top-tier journals like Nature might not have accounted for even the most obvious confounding variables.
And in fact the article pointed out this out:
"It’s also important to note that the studies included in the analysis were observational, meaning that the data can only show an association between eating habits and disease –– not prove that what people ate caused the disease. They also relied on people recalling their dietary patterns, which can leave room for misremembering or misreporting, said Dr. Gunter Kuhnle, professor of nutrition and food science at the University of Reading in the
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I got the full PDF content in a viewer from this CNN link. [nature.com]
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The more you breathe, the more the risk of age-related illnesses increases.
What control group was used in this study?
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My dad lived to 99 on a diet of Chinese take out, frozen pizza, cold cuts, and beer.
Genetics and luck are bigger factors than diet. But diet is statistically meaningful and something that we can control. So you'd be an idiot to ignore your diet.
Obligatory XKCD (Score:2)
My dad lived to 99 on a diet of Chinese take out, frozen pizza, cold cuts, and beer.
He was slim and still active.
Obligatory XKCD. https://xkcd.com/1827/ [xkcd.com] Note this is obligatory because people using phrases like this on Slashdot deserve to be mocked by Slashdot's favourite comic strip.
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Food causes 40% of deceases. There are some rare genes that can protect you from cancer and other deceases. If you want to live long your options are:
1) Get your genes checked, if you are lucky and have those genes, you have nothing to worry about. Or perhaps, if you had the genes and would eat healthy you would live even longer and more healthy.
2) Eat healthy.
Regarding the breathing, oxygen is toxic for all living things and it literally kills us if we get too much of it.
https://gladstone.org/news/res... [gladstone.org]
An
Well... (Score:1)
My kid is going to die.
Re: Well... (Score:2)
Correlation is not causality... again ffs (Score:5, Insightful)
The headline is not what the research says. The research says people who regularly eat industrial food are more likely to be unhealthy.
Re:Correlation is not causality... again ffs (Score:4, Insightful)
The research literally says that consuming certain types of processed food increases likelihood of certain diseases because of the way the food ingredients affect the body; the data is confirming this and at a glance appears to be properly normalized to adjusting for other factors that aren't a subject of the specific causes.
The "correlation is not causation" mantra is only acceptable if the argument using it can provide another credible explanation. Your comment doesn't.
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In this case, they did
Of reading comprehension ze gift, have it you do not.
Re:Correlation is not causality... again ffs (Score:5, Informative)
anyone can identify 'safe amount' subjects. The headline term 'new research'
doesn't hold water either, this was a review of many old studies.
Correlation can mean that health issues cause diet, or diet causes health issues.
Neither is unlikely.
I just ran across How to Lie with Statistics the other day.
My hardback is first edition, 1954.
Maybe we should pay the copyright holder and train AIs on that text?
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Correlation can mean that health issues cause diet, or diet causes health issues.
Or both have a common cause.
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I just ran across How to Lie with Statistics the other day.
For people who don't understand statistics, the world is a very confusing place.
Who's going to ... (Score:5, Funny)
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So, about this...
Sumo wrestlers are extremely healthy and active, at a certain age. They eat extremely rich calorie-dense food to gain weight.
When they retire, the level of diabetes and weight related health issues skyrocket. You have to lose weight in Sumo after you retire or you will die young, in general.
Joey Chestnut is 41. I would wager my left nut that this guy will experience colorectal cancer or something else horrible when he gets to a certain age, unless he switches his diet up seriously.
When h
Well within the margin of error (Score:5, Informative)
the study "relied on people recalling their dietary patterns, which can leave room for misremembering or misreporting...Utilizing even the most sophisticated techniques does not really solve the problem that the information about diet is rather limited – which is obviously a big problem in nutritional epidemiology in general"
So you really want to see a much stronger correlation before drawing a conclusion. Eating hot dogs every day is weird. I have to imagine that someone who eats hot dogs every day probably has other things going on in their diet (like never eating vegetables).
A new study analyzing data from other projects? (Score:2)
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This important research shows that Trump is right - being trans causes all sorts of issues!
Guess what we're having for dinner tonight? (Score:3)
Homemade hamburgers!
It is the Fourth of July, after all.
One hotdog !?! (Score:4, Insightful)
"As little as one hotdog daily..."
I LOVE hot dogs.
A hotdog EVERY DAY is not "little". OMG.
That's an outrageous amount of hotdog in your diet.
Is this study like the rats and saccharine?
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That said I do wonder how much a hotdog is substituted with healthy home made food when you're not eating hotdogs. That's sort of the problem. Yeah I love hotdogs I'll eat them maybe once every 2 weeks. But I'm pretty sure I can classify my diet as processed meat maybe every 3rd day otherwise. The overall study wasn't about hotdogs specifically.
That said even the study says the correlation is weak.
Is it the food or being poor? (Score:2)
Researchers analyzed data from more than 60 previous studies on the relationship between processed meats, sugar-sweetened beverages and trans fatty acids in a person’s diet and their risk of type 2 diabetes, colorectal cancer and ischemic heart disease, which reduces blood supply to the heart and cuts off oxygen and nutrients, according to the study published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine.
3 variables? So which is it?...the sugar? the trans fats? the processed meat? What does processed meat mean? Hot dogs?...no problem...but what about tinned fish? what about smoked salmon? "processed" is a non-specific term.
I eat psychotically healthy. I am around people who eat like shit. I honestly don't see any correlation. I've had days where I was on vacation and ate like shit...again..no correlation. I didn't feel better or worse, beyond heartburn...which I honestly get more from eating he
Junk Science or Junk Reporting (Score:2)
The study apparently is fine but the article really has nothing to do with the study. Its inventing an interesting conclusion to make it effective clickbait.
Its not just the obvious correlation/causation problem. Its also attributing the statistical characteristics of the population to the individuals in the population. Even if there is causal effect that creates the statistical result, that doesn't mean it applies to all the individual members of the population. It means it applies to some portion of the
This is why I don't "trust the science" (Score:2)
Because this report is almost telling use to just stop eating meat from cattle, pigs and even chickens, let alone seafood. It almost sounds like they want us to switch to an insect-based diet, which may or may not be a good thing given that we haven't really tried to harvest insects for food on an industrial scale. Besides, the phrase "everything in moderation" makes way more sense for a health perspective.
"soda" is not all the same (Score:2)
>"Drinking approximately one 12-ounce soda per day was associated with an 8% increase in type 2 diabetes risk and 2% increased risk of ischemic heart disease."
That was an example. It actually was referring to sugar-sweetened drinks. It wasn't all "soda" or just soda. And not all sodas are the same. Some have sugar, some have corn syrup HFCS, some have caffeine, some have aspartame, some have sucralose, some have sodium, some have artificial colors, some have artificial flavors, etc. The only thing t
Well, I'm f***ed (Score:2)
i should be dead already