Processed meats do cause cancer

[papa smurf]

woo hoo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL_lS_FsMvk

It’s also worth noting this is one study. You shouldn’t pick and choose which you believe in accordance with what you want to believe. Public Heath England and the World Health Organisation list it as a grade one carcinogen, which isn’t actually contradicted by this new study.

Nothing has been debunked. The evidence has not changed and wasn’t ‘paper thin’. Instead this one study has a different outlook on the overall impact.

[ianch99]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

Fake news, now doubt promoted heavily by the vegan brigade. I have been ignoring the advice of these people on which foods are bad for you for a long time, now. My low carb diet is varied and keeps me pretty well, even with the reasonable quantity of meat I have as part of it.

I will never forgive them for advising against eating butter. I have had to put up with using Flora for many years as a result of that. I use my own judgement these days and give all these pronouncements the common sense test.

I am sure when cigarette smoking was a mass market product in the 1920's and 1930's, they applied their own judgement and applied the common sense test as well.

[nomadking]

Originally Posted by Hugh

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-49877237



Let's scale that up -

In the UK, there are 37 million people aged between 18 and 59 (let's say these are most at risk), there would be
- a lifetime, there would be 259,000 fewer deaths from cancer
- 11 years, there would be 148,000 fewer deaths from heart disease

And if every week for 11 years, 37,000,000 people cut out three portions of:
- red meat, there would be 222,000 fewer cases of type 2 diabetes
- processed meat, there would be 444,000 fewer cases of type 2 diabetes

Small datasets can't be extrapolated that way. Eg 7 in 1,000 could easily actually mean 4,000 in 1,000,000 or 10,000 in 1,000,000. If you throw a pair of dice 36 times, double 6 could appear more than once or not at all.

[spiderplant]

Originally Posted by nomadking

Small datasets can't be extrapolated that way. Eg 7 in 1,000 could easily actually mean 4,000 in 1,000,000 or 10,000 in 1,000,000.

That would be true if they'd only sampled 1000 people, but actually the 7 in 1000 figure is downscaled from a sample size of hundreds of thousands. So scaling back up is statistically valid.

[nomadking]

Originally Posted by spiderplant

That would be true if they'd only sampled 1000 people, but actually the 7 in 1000 figure is downscaled from a sample size of hundreds of thousands. So scaling back up is statistically valid.

The studies they reviewed had such a wide range of results, that the results were deemed a low certainty of being valid.
Original report

cause mortality, cardiovascular mortality, stroke, myocardial infarction, and type 2 diabetes (range, 1 fewer to 12 fewer events per 1000 persons with a decrease of 3 servings/wk), with no statistically significant difference in 1 additional outcome (cardiovascular disease) (16). For cohort studies addressing adverse cancer outcomes (31 cohorts with 3.5 million participants providing data for our dose–response analysis), we also found low- to very low-certainty evidence that a decreased intake of processed meat was associated with a very small absolute risk reduction in overall lifetime cancer mortality; prostate cancer mortality; and the incidence of esophageal, colorectal, and breast cancer (range, 1 fewer to 8 fewer events per 1000 persons with a decrease of 3 servings/wk), with no statistically significant differences in incidence or mortality for 12 additional cancer outcomes

A finding of 1 in 1,000 and another of 12 in 1,000, demonstrate the original studies can't be relied upon.

[jfman]

Originally Posted by Damien

It’s also worth noting this is one study. You shouldn’t pick and choose which you believe in accordance with what you want to believe. Public Heath England and the World Health Organisation list it as a grade one carcinogen, which isn’t actually contradicted by this new study.

Nothing has been debunked. The evidence has not changed and wasn’t ‘paper thin’. Instead this one study has a different outlook on the overall impact.

As always all that's required is enough to place doubt on the original studies for industry to muddy the water and claim everything is fine.

Always worth looking at the source info, not the media headlines...

Amongst the reviews were -
12 unique trials enrolling 54,000 participants
23 cohort studies with 1.4 million participants
17 cohorts with 2.2 million participants
70 cohort studies with just over 6 million participants
10 cohort studies with 778,000 participants
31 cohorts with 3.5 million participants

https://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/2...endations-from

Recommendations:
The panel suggests that adults continue current unprocessed red meat consumption (weak recommendation, low-certainty evidence). Similarly, the panel suggests adults continue current processed meat consumption (weak recommendation, low-certainty evidence).

In terms of how to interpret our weak recommendation, it indicates that the panel believed that for the majority of individuals, the desirable effects (a potential lowered risk for cancer and cardiometabolic outcomes) associated with reducing meat consumption probably do not outweigh the undesirable effects (impact on quality of life, burden of modifying cultural and personal meal preparation and eating habits). The weak recommendation reflects the panel's awareness that values and preferences differ widely, and that as a result, a minority of fully informed individuals will choose to reduce meat consumption.

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by ianch99

I am sure when cigarette smoking was a mass market product in the 1920's and 1930's, they applied their own judgement and applied the common sense test as well.

Except that the 'common sense' question would have been (at least for me): "What the hell does all this smoke do to my lungs?". That is the very question I asked myself when I was young and encouraged by my peers to have a smoke.

The application of common sense generally gives you the right answer.

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

Except that the 'common sense' question would have been (at least for me): "What the hell does all this smoke do to my lungs?". That is the very question I asked myself when I was young and encouraged by my peers to have a smoke.

The application of common sense generally gives you the right answer.

So much of the history of science has been correcting our natural assumptions about the world.

The history of medicine for example: The germ theory of disease was not common sense, the idea diseases could be spread by microscopic germs we couldn't see. Common sense suggested it was bad air. It made sense, it would explain why it spread close to people and it explained the smells they were subjected too.

It was common sense that the Sun revolved around the Earth as, from our perspective, it seemed to do so. Even the earth being flat made sense.

The best example is physics where hardly anything makes any logical sense to us natively. Relativity is a mad concept. Try and wrap your head around time and space being the same thing!

---------- Post added at 20:09 ---------- Previous post was at 19:51 ----------

Also if smoking causing lung cancer was such common sense it wouldn't have been so popular and there would have been less resistance to the idea when it came.