Someone once told me "Anytime you feel defensive when you're not being attacked, that's a feeling you should examine."
There's an awful lot of defensive comments in here! Nobody's forcing you to stop eating red meat. If you feel ambivalent or defensive about that choice, it's fine and healthy to say "I know eating this red meat is riskier than eating white meat or a vegetarian meal, but I'm going to choose to eat it anyway because that's my preference."
What I'd urge you NOT to do is to try to deny or belittle the source that's providing the information that makes you uncomfortable. That leads to all kinds of bad mental patterns!
This research, and increasing its entrance into the zeitgeist, is also valuable to give doctors a foundation to “prescribe” diet changes.
When confronted with chemo, it has been my experience that, doctors are reluctant to talk about nutrition. (I speculate, over a concern for their own ignorance, ala risking getting caught up in fad or woo science)
Sometimes even going hard in the other direction, saying “eat whatever you want!”, when study after study show a positive correlation with nutrition based methods targeting specific cancers and complementing certain chemo “cocktail”s.
At first I was mad about the use of the term ironclad, because nothing in this field is ever really ironclad, and then I read the article and realized it’s actually a clever pun.
The headline is actually misleading (from the original article). The first paragraph clarifies that they're talking about the overconsumption of read meat.
I think that should be obvious. Overconsumption of red meat has been associated with, like, every bad thing ever. Generally, nutrition advice only really focuses on overconsumption.
There's basically nothing that's always bad to eat or drink, the only exception I know of is alcohol. And even that is really really low risk if you drink just a little.
>We show how iron-(Fe3+) in collusion with genetic factors reactivates telomerase, providing a molecular mechanism for the association between iron overload and increased incidence of colorectal cancers
So I guess the link between kale and cancer has been identified.
fe3+ definitely exists in non-animal matter too. We can talk about quantity, whatever, but my commentary is intended to criticize the baiting and conclusion-drawing.
Fe(III) ions exist in all the cells of all aerobic living beings, for instance in the molecules of the so-called cytochromes, which are used in the cellular respiration.
Nevertheless, the amount of Fe(III) that exists in almost all cells is extremely small in comparison with the amount of Fe(III) that exists in the blood of any vertebrate, where it is used to transport dioxygen in the entire body. The "red" muscles also contain a similar protein to that of the red blood cells, which is used to store dioxygen.
Therefore any kind of food that contains either blood or muscles rich in myoglobin will contain much more Fe(III) than anything else.
It exists at MUCH SMALLER amounts. Their conclusion drawing should be based on an amount should it not? Lead from shooting my gun is not going to damage me the same as eating a bunch of handfulls of pure lead because of the AMOUNT that my body will end up processing. Quantity is so key its absurd to overlook it.
It should be also noted that the iron supplements contain reduced Fe(II) ions, and not the oxidized Fe(III) ions that have been identified as cancer causes by this study.
The Fe(II) ions are soluble in water and they may also be found in natural water, but the Fe(III) ions normally form insoluble precipitates that would not have any effect even if they would pass through the intestine.
The Fe(III) ions that have been identified as harmful are those that are bound to organic molecules, e.g. proteins like hemoglobin, so that they are prevented from forming insoluble minerals.
Well the article title implies the consumption of "all" red meat is linked to cancer, while the actual study opens with stating that it's over consumption of iron-rich meat which is linked to cancer, but the actual study then never even bothers to define what they consider to be "over consumption".
High iron intake also seems to be implicated in cardiovascular disease, and may be one of the reasons it is more prevalent in men, as women lose iron during menstruation, whereas men tend to accumulate it over time. Donating blood may be a good way to deal with this.
It seems unreasonable to pin this concern on red meat in particular- especially since so many people also take iron supplements and eat iron fortified processed foods.
Instead I think it makes sense to look at your bloodwork- and then adjust iron intake and or donate blood regularly. I’d bet you can still eat a steak many times per week and have an overall fairly low, or even too low iron intake. It takes about a full pound of steak every day just to meet the iron RDA for adult men, which is much lower than for young women.
I'm skeptical of this, as I don't see how the oxidation state from the food will influence the resulting oxidation state once it is absorbed and in the blood stream, or in a cell.
For digestive absorption Fe3+ is reduced to Fe2+, and then it gets reoxidized to Fe3+ after digestive absorption.
I would expect that different forms of dietery iron- reduced or not, protein bound or not, etc. would affect how well they are absorbed, but not affect the resulting oxidation state after absorption.
I suppose I would need more details on exactly how they think the iron is being transported to the cells in these colon cancer situations.
Researchers have long known about the positive correlation between how much red meat a person eats and that person's chance of developing colorectal cancer. There are plenty of large behavioral health surveys that show this. So the audience for this article will understand the context. Heck, they might even find this article by searching "red meat colorectal cancer" in a database.
It's more complicated than that. For example, why do those who eat mostly plant based (I mean real plants and not processed foods) have lower rates of cancer if both sides get iron? Iron is essential to live.
It could have something to do with amount. For example, Iron from animal products is easier for the body to absorb and there are MUCH higher levels per gram (e.g., beef has 7x the iron kale does). Is it too much iron?
It could be type. You have FE2+, FE3+, heme iron, non-heme iron, etc. This article points to FE3+. Is there something more there?
The study says that only the Fe(III) ions are harmful.
Most iron that can be found in water or in food is in the form of Fe(II) ions, because all minerals that contain Fe(III) ions are insoluble.
The only components of food that are rich in Fe(III) are the hemoglobin from blood and the myoglobin from the "red" muscles, which are used by all vertebrates to transport or store oxygen.
There are lots of different irons though, as I recall from chemistry class. I wouldn’t assume that every form of iron you ingest is equally carcinogenic.
Of course you need iron to live but many times too much of something leads to bad consequences.
The previous studies I have looked at point to heme vs non-heme iron sources. The heme iron comes from animal sources and is easier for the human body to absorb than plant based non-heme iron but the heme iron may be leading to cancer growth.
> So, to reiterate, the researchers found that the iron in red meat reactivated telomerase in colorectal cancer cells, thus driving the progression of the cancer.
Baseless theory: Does eating mammal desensitize the immune system to “not me” mammal cells in a way that slightly alters the recognition fidelity of “not me” cancer cells?
Our consumption of mammal meat is quantitatively, though not qualitatively, out of spec for human biology.
I'd never thought of telomere decay inhibiting cancer growth, but it makes a lot of sense. So many of the ways our biology can fail are also "load bearing bugs" that can't be fixed without negative repercussions.
The research paper "Iron-(Fe3+)-Dependent Reactivation of Telomerase Drives Colorectal Cancers" seems perfectly legit and it solves a well-known mystery.
My guess would be the misleading nature of the “ironclad” in the title, it being a pun on the mechanism of the link rather than a claim as to the strength of the link.
Wait until everyone hears about the iron fortification that takes real resolve to avoid when buying processed foods. Down to most that you will get at Whole Foods, at least after Amazon acquired it.
I've been chelating iron for a few years now, on and off. It's a subtractive approach to antioxidant protection and it helps.
If you give blood regularly, it should have the same effect.
In the past, people may have noticed some health rejuvenation after a survivable injury that caused some blood loss.
Would you expand on, or clarify, what you are trying to say here:
"It's a subtractive approach to antioxidant protection and it helps."
I will note that there are, in fact, observed benefits that seem to be linked to regular blood-lets, such as one would experience if they regularly gave blood.
I don't have my own opinion on this but I find it interesting ...
Non-regular iron (and other divalent metal) chelation via oral supplement. Usually only when I'm feeling off, haven't done it in awhile, want some help with sleep, or have been eating a lot of fortified foods.
This is interesting. The link they claim is that it's the iron in the meat, specifically in the form of Fe3+, which activates telomerase in colorectal cancer, advancing the cancer (or causing individual cancer cells to proliferate when they may have been naturally killed off).
The huge question this leaves for me, which isn't addressed at all, is why we do not see similar associations with colorectal cancer with other foods high in iron?
On a per-serving basis, foods like spinach contain far, far more iron than beef [0]. Furthermore, beef contains mostly heme-based iron, which is chelated Fe2+, not Fe3+. More broadly, most non-heme iron is in Fe3+ form, and must be reduced to Fe2+ in your digestive system [1]. Why don't we see this cancer associated with other iron-rich foods?
Also in [1] is mentioned that consuming Vitamin C assists the reduction of Fe3+ to Fe2+, I wonder if we will find that high levels of vitamin C consumption reduce the risk of colorectal cancer.
The heme-bound iron can be either reduced as Fe(II) or oxidized as Fe(III).
When exposed to air, like when the blood passes through the lungs, or in cut meat, it will be oxidized to Fe(III), in which case its color will be a pleasant vivid red. When the iron is reduced, the heme has a much duller color.
The iron that can be absorbed or interact in any way with the intestine is either Fe(II), which is soluble in water or Fe(III) that is bound to proteins like hemoglobin or to other organic molecules. Otherwise, the Fe(III) ions form insoluble precipitates that pass through the intestine without effect.
> On a per-serving basis, foods like spinach contain far, far more iron than beef [0]
And how many servings of each dies the average person eat? Based only on my personal observations, I could believe that people eat enough red meat to far overcompensate for the differences per-serving.
There's an awful lot of defensive comments in here! Nobody's forcing you to stop eating red meat. If you feel ambivalent or defensive about that choice, it's fine and healthy to say "I know eating this red meat is riskier than eating white meat or a vegetarian meal, but I'm going to choose to eat it anyway because that's my preference."
What I'd urge you NOT to do is to try to deny or belittle the source that's providing the information that makes you uncomfortable. That leads to all kinds of bad mental patterns!
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