• bblkargonaut@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    My father gave up red meat and soda around 2002. My dad’s clone, my uncle didn’t give up anything. Yes they are clones, I sequenced them myself. Since then my dad has always been at least 20lbs heavier than my uncle despite having almost identical activity levels since they had similar jobs and shared hobbies for most of the time. Now 23 years later my dad has heart congestive heart failure and a torn meniscus in his knee while my uncle has a perfect heart but has needed both knees replaced. I think the biggest difference is definitely the sugar because my uncle tends to drink diet soda and my dad fruit juice, tea and coffee.

  • melsaskca@lemmy.ca
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    11 hours ago

    I’ve had my team of “experts in the obvious” work on this for one and a half minutes and they came to the same conclusion. This is a human greed business issue, not a science one.

  • Pnut@lemm.ee
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    8 hours ago

    Does “bad for your health” mean “if we hadn’t been doing this, life expectancy would be about 200 years”?

    • exasperation@lemm.ee
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      7 hours ago

      There’s three metrics to think about:

      • Actual number of years reduced/increased
      • Actual probability of that change in lifespan
      • Statistical certainty that the trend we observe is actually linked to the variable we’re studying.

      Russian roulette (traditional 1 round in 6 chambers) in a hospice ward (where everyone has been given a prognosis of less than 6 months to live) would be a very high certainty of shaving months off the life of 1/6 of the studied population. In the grand scheme of things, that’s not a very high risk. But at the same time, we can look at it and say “yes, shooting oneself with a revolver is very bad for health.” Putting a more or less deadly round in the chamber is probably not going to be a hugely significant change in outcomes, even if we can objectively say that one is better or worse for the person’s health than the other.

      Almost all dietary/nutrition studies involve much smaller swings in lifespan or health conditions, probabilistically over a smaller portion of the population, with less statistical certainty in the observations. But the science is still worth doing, and analyzing, because that all adds up.

  • p3n@lemmy.world
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    22 hours ago

    There is no such thing as an impartial sponsor; some are more obviously biased than others, but the belief in a fictitious impartiality is part of the problem. It shouldn’t take a meta-study for people to see am obvious conflict of interest.

    I’m biased. You are biased. Everyone is biased.

  • Opinionhaver@feddit.uk
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    1 day ago

    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.

    • RBWells@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      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.

    • markstos@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      Did you read how any of the referenced studies were structured to confirm this assumption?

    • Soulcreator@lemmy.world
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      12 hours ago

      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.

      • Opinionhaver@feddit.uk
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        10 hours ago

        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.

    • JeremyHuntQW12@lemmy.world
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      18 hours ago

      Most of the studies include processed meat like salami, which has known carcinogens and conflates the result to all red meat.

      • exasperation@lemm.ee
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        7 hours ago

        This particular linked study, that is the basis for this thread, limited itself to only unprocessed red meat.

  • markovs_gun@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    “I just take scientists out and give them a bunch of funding for their research, and they always give me the results I want. Now of course they could always say no, but they won’t because of the implication. You know, that if they produced results that disagreed with me, that I would refuse to fund future studies. Of course I would never do that, but they don’t know that. So they give positive results for me. You know, because of the implication.”

  • Druid@lemmy.zip
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    2 days ago

    Ain’t that a surprise. Studies on the effects sugary drinks have on your health backed by Coca Cola are also funny

  • Secret Music@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 day ago

    And this kind of shit unfortunately is fuel for anti-vaxxers and conspiracy types. It’s not just misinformation on social media that we have to thank for people’s mistrust, it’s also the scientists that downplayed how bad sugar is or who turned a blind eye to what cigarettes do in the interests of money.