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There is no safe amount of processed meat to eat, according to new research | CNN (edition.cnn.com)

submitted 1 day ago by ooli3@sopuli.xyz to c/science@lemmy.ml

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[–] nous@programming.dev 10 points 1 day ago (4 children)

The only things not linked to cancer are the things not yet been studied. Seems like everything at some point has been linked to cancer.

The data showed that people who ate as little as one hot dog a day when it comes to processed meats had an 11% greater risk of type 2 diabetes and a 7% increased risk of colorectal cancer than those who didn’t eat any. And drinking the equivalent of about a 12-ounce soda per day was associated with an 8% increase in type 2 diabetes risk and a 2% increased risk of ischemic heart disease.

Sounds like a correlation... someone who eats one hot dog and drinks one soda per day is probably doing a lot of unhealthy things.

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.

Yup, that is what it is. A correlation. So overall not really worth the effort involved IMO. Not eating any processed meats at all is not likely a big issue, but your overall diet and amount of exercise/lifestyle. I would highly suspect that even if you did eat one hotdog per day, but had a otherwise perfect diet for the rest of the day and did plenty of exercise, got good sleep and all the other things we know are good for you then these negative effects would likely becomes negligible. But who the hell is going to do that? That's the problem with these observational studies - you cannot really tease out the effect of one thing out of a whole bad lifestyle.

I hate headlines like this as it makes it sounds like you can just do thins one simple thing and get massive beneficial effects. You cannot. You need to change a whole bunch of things to see the types of reduction in risk they always talk about. Instead they always make it sounds like if you have even one hot dog YOU ARE GOING TO DIE.

[–] jet@hackertalks.com 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Is everything we eat associated with cancer? A systematic cookbook review

I personally think the reason EVERYTHING is linked to cancer, as well as the massive surge in cancer since the 1900s, is all due to the modern metabolism (sugar burners) being very different then pre-1900 metabolism (fat burners)

High carbohydrate load, high blood glucose load, high insulin levels
Industrial Oil, systemic body inflammation
Agrochemical contamination of food supply, more systematic inflammation

The problem with these observational studies is they don't look at the modern metabolic context, so in this context, yes EVERYTHING is associated with cancer - because the studies arn't looking at the right variables.

This is exactly why hard science doesn't use association to draw conclusions, epidemiology is hypothesis generating only

If you haven't read about the Metabolic Theory of Cancer I highly recommend giving it a read. It's a much more compelling model, and explains the surge of cancer since 1900, as well as actionable steps to reduce incidence (reduce sugar and inflammation).

[–] nous@programming.dev 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The surge of cancer since the 1900s is also explainable by the surge in our ability to detect cancer and overall understanding of it.

One big reason papers always find these links is just that they are finding correlations, which are always there, even for unrelated things. When you are looking at loads of factors in a observational study you are almost bound to find some accidental correlation. It is very hard to tell if that is just random or if there is a true cause behind it.

There are all sorts of spurious correlations if you look hard enough.

[–] jet@hackertalks.com 1 points 23 hours ago

That is a great point! there is debate about our diagnostic capabilities improving. However, pick a year, any year and use that as year zero. We still have to account for the geometric growth of cancer after that year.

Going back to pre-1900s cancer, it was seen on rare occasions, if it was as common as today (50% of westerners will have cancer in their lives) then it would have shown up with some frequency in the historical medical literature.

I would use the same thought experiment for type 2 diabetes, cardio vascular disease (someone would have made a record of otherwise healthy people just falling over dead randomly in the streets), etc.... the modern chronic diseases all appear to have a common starting point in the historical record >1900, which suggests a common cause. I think metabolic health is the most likely unifying theory, I could be wrong, but improving metabolic health doesn't hurt.

We know there is a 3x risk of cancer for people with obesity. We know there is a 3x risk of cancer for people with type 2 diabetes. We also know global obesity is going up, and type 2 diabetes is going up. There are almost 1 billion people in the world diagnosed with T2D. The country with the highest T2D rate is also the country that eats the least amount of meat (India). Some new thing has happened globally since 1900 to cause this change.

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