
Does Carnitine from Red Meat Cause Heart Disease? - sridca
http://www.diagnosisdiet.com/red-meat-and-heart-disease/
======
Svoka
This person clearly has strong believe in "meat is healthy" and tries to find
proof of that, and provides multiple links to healthy meat blog posts. I mean,
with such attitude one can confirm anything.

But for some reason overwhelming majority of scientists claim that consuming
meat in quantities we do in North America is not good for health and
environment on multiple dimensions: cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes,
infections, kidney disease, liver disease, cattle waste, deforestation and
many others.

HH & authors attitude towards this article really reminds me some cringe
movements like anti-vaxers or some other shit, where people choose what they
want first and then find confirmation for it.

~~~
jeremyw
I appreciate the skepticism. But you might want to look at the foundational
evidence for meat-causes-(bad thing) health claims. It's all incredibly weak
and confounded, and would never be considered evidence in other fields.

~~~
markstos
The World Health Organization found processed meats to be carcinogens.

~~~
sridca
Trumpeting to the world that meat causes cancer on the basis of these studies
is ridiculously irresponsible and makes a mockery of the WHO. There is ample
information to suggest that the WHO’s report is biased, incomplete, and
scientifically dishonest.

Ref [http://www.diagnosisdiet.com/meat-and-
cancer/](http://www.diagnosisdiet.com/meat-and-cancer/)

~~~
markstos
I wouldn't call an additional reference from the same psychiatrist as the
original article as a "ample" information. Here's one of the expert reference
she cites:

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24769880](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24769880)

It acknowledges the research connecting red and processed meat with cancer and
suggests further study be performed to understand the exact mechanisms
involved.

If you have any references from a _second_ source that appears to discredit
the WHO report, that would be more interesting.

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markstos
Recent Harvard research found that we need to replace beef and dairy to avoid
climate catastrophe.

[https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14693062.2018.1...](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14693062.2018.1528965?af=R&)

Harvard's finding is consistent with the drawdown.org research that found
plant-rich diets are a top solution to climate change. (4th of 80).

[https://www.drawdown.org/solutions-summary-by-
rank](https://www.drawdown.org/solutions-summary-by-rank)

------
rovyko
Interesting article, I was under the impression that the link between heart
disease meat consumption was more strongly established. It's important to note
that this article is from 2013, so I wonder how much has changed since.

Joe Rogan hosted a nice debate between two scientists in the field, one of
whom was a strict vegan:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULtqCBimr6U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULtqCBimr6U).

~~~
drilldrive
How is a layman supposed to differentiate between the author of this article
and the authors of the studies done? I take it for granted that both sides
consist of experts in the field, and yet the positions taken are radically
different from one another.

I would assume a priori that the vegan side would be more widely supported
amongst the experts (to say nothing of its merit), only on the basis of
veganism being more congruent with the standard compassion of postmodernism.

~~~
DVassallo
The best way I found to acquire information is to see what passed the test of
time. For example, if humans have been eating red meat for 200,000 years, it's
very unlikely it is net harmful. It's still possible, but the burden of proof
is on who thinks it's harmful. (And it better be very strong evidence.) Mother
nature has a very good filter for harmful things.

~~~
DenisM
Humans didn't wash hands for 200,000 years and suffered from horrible
diseases. Test of time is hardly conclusive.

~~~
DVassallo
Not doing something can't be tested against the test of time. Hygiene and
antibiotics obviously improved our lives. So did cooking food and building
civilizations. But if red meat was eaten for 200K years, we've very likely
adapted ourselves to benefit from it... not only not get harmed by it.
(Obviously in the right quantities.)

~~~
bluejekyll
Interestingly, the overuse of antibiotics has the likelyhood of causing them
to create superbugs that make the antibiotics completely useless.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotic_misuse](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotic_misuse)

Also, while cleanliness is absolutely important, over cleanliness appears to
be a potential cause of asthma and allergies in general.

[https://www.webmd.com/allergies/news/20140606/too-clean-
home...](https://www.webmd.com/allergies/news/20140606/too-clean-homes-may-
encourage-child-allergies-asthma-study)

------
drilldrive
So are there any foods that are uncontroversially known to predispose people
to heart attacks? It seems that just about everything is contentious in
nutrition science these days.

~~~
tracker1
Refined sugars and other highly inflammatory foods in general increase risk
over time. Metabolic syndrome seems to be the biggest correlation to most
disease. Most refined sugars are half or more Fructose and we get in general
30 times the amount of sugar on average today compared to 120 years ago. We
also get far more refined grains, and refined vegetable (seed) oils.

High fructose intake in particular leads to a lot of disruption, although
increased and continuous carbohydrate and intake of refined oils is seeing
more evidence of being a large impact as well. Most of my reading the past
couple years seems to indicate that minimizing overly refined foods in general
and reducing snacking and increasing fasting cycles (intermittent and
extended) are some of the better changes we (as a people) could make beyond
sugar specifically and refined foods in general.

edit: note: the only organ that can really process fructose is the liver, and
in quantities often consumed, the effect is worse than alcoholism.

~~~
drilldrive
Yes, I agree with you personally that refined foods are terrible for you long
term, but is there an expert consensus on the issue? And I do not think there
is a consensus on sugars in particular.

Regarding refined grains, do you have a take on house-hold breads? I mean, the
breads are highly processed, and yet I do not know of an alternative for
sandwiches and the like.

~~~
tracker1
Aside from paid shills of the sugar/soda industry and a bunch of junk research
from the 60's, there's a pretty solid concensus that refined sugars
(especially at modern diet levels) and in particular fructose is pretty damned
bad for you.

------
paulcole
This is what’s so wonderful about nutrition.

There’s something for everyone! Just decide what you want to eat, search until
you find evidence in favor of that diet, and then stop looking.

------
arisAlexis
This article is written in a very biased unscientific way and I wonder why it
got so many upvotes. I get that people like meat here but.

~~~
markstos
What's one example where it is unscientific?

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DVassallo
Homo sapiens has been eating red meat for 200,000 years. It is very unlikely
it is net harmful to us.

~~~
AQuantized
From an evolutionary perspective, all you can conclude from that is that it
was unlikely to be a net detriment in the prevailing conditions of the vast
majority of that time.

Heart disease in later life was unlikely to be a substantial downside compared
with the nutrient and caloric density of the meal throughout most of human
history. Now, with much easier access to a wide range of foods, and a much
higher chance of surviving to be killed by heart disease, that may no longer
be the case.

~~~
rovyko
This is a very good point that I see people miss quite often. Evolutionary
pressure doesn't mean we adapt to optimize lifespan and health in our
environment. The primary driver is the survivability of subsequent
generations, not to reduce suffering.

~~~
DVassallo
Alive ancestors help the subsequent generations.

~~~
firethief
But they've already done that, so it seems late to optimize for having
reproductively successful ancestors

~~~
DVassallo
People with living parents and grandparents would have likely had a better
chance of survival than those without living family members. Thus, those with
genes that have adapted to live longer and healthier would still have had an
evolutionary benefit, despite no reproductive benefits.

It might be true even today, let alone in the caveman era.

~~~
checkyoursudo
While I personally think your idea is likely, you really only need people to
live to be about 50 or 60 to accomplish this, I think. If every generation has
kids from around 15-20 years old, which seems very likely in our distant past,
then you only need to be about 60 to have three generations of descendants
(children, grand-children, great-grand-children), in which case by this
argument perhaps you've done enough already and are free to die by whatever
means you prefer after that point.

Maybe our advantage was that we, unlike other primates, had a lot of
individuals even only making it to _40_ years old in the distant past before
they got eaten by tigers or succumbed to all manner of mosquito-borne diseases
et cetera.

~~~
DVassallo
It's not the earliest age of reproduction that matters, but the latest age. If
a woman can give birth at age 40, and descendants with living parents and
grand-parents have a significant survival advantage, then it makes sense that
we've adapted to live to over 80.

