Meat-eating extends human life expectancy worldwide
medicalxpress.com
medicalxpress.com
> The researchers found that the consumption of energy from carbohydrate crops (grains and tubers) does not lead to greater life expectancy, and that total meat consumption correlates to greater life expectancy, independent of the competing effects of total calorie intake, economic affluence, urban advantages, and obesity.
But what I see here is carbs vs protein. It doesn't say what substituting other proteins for meat does to life expectancy.
This study says "living on only cereals is bad for you". It provides no new information for people living above the poverty line in first-world countries (unless you were considering being vegan by subsisting on potatoes).
> "Studies looking into the diets of wealthy, highly educated communities, are looking at people who have the purchasing power and the knowledge to select plant-based diets that access the full nutrients normally contained in meat. Essentially, they have replaced meat with all the same nutrition meat provides."
Yes meat contains a lot of necessary nutrients, but they also say it is possible to replace those if you have the knowledge.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4144107/#:~:tex....
Seventh-Day Adventists have a lower cancer risk and a longer life expectancy than the general US population. In the ''Adventist Health Study 2" they compared meat-eating adventists to vegetarian and vegan adventists from 2001 and 2007. In total they enrolled 96,000 Adventists of age 30 to 112, from all 50 U.S. states and Canada, making this the largest study on the topic (to my knowledge).
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-eating-...
Read much of this book, for example: https://www.amazon.com/How-Not-Die-Discover-Scientifically/d...
That eating meat is more nutritious than eating only carb crops isn't very applicable to anyone on HN, I don't think. We're kinda beyond that and should be looking for the next rung up on the ladder, like eating enough fiber—something few Americans do.
We're too easily swept up in faction wars about food to have meaningful discussion and it muddies the water when you try to find good information. We'll argue about the health implications of meat and vegetables and whatever while having a coke and bag of chips next to the keyboard while pretending we're all min/maxing our health.
Meanwhile, we ignore the fact that most people don't try to get anywhere near any of the so-called optimal diets we're so willing to argue about, and the distance from the average person's diet to those diets are probably a lot farther than the health impact between those diets.
There are a lot of doctors, scientists, and academics who have gone all in on veganism, keto-based diets, paleo diets, and even carnviore. They have blogs, forums, youtube channels, etc..
They're all very smart people be it Dr Greger as a vegan or say (Dr.) Shawn Baker as a carnivore. Or Eric Berg (pro-veggie heavy keto and fasting) but they all have these massive blind spots. They all cherry pick studies and data that verify their diet of choice
they all love poor studies that contradict their findings because they go "see this is the type of stuff the media latches on to and makes you stray from the faith!" It gives them easy targets to take down.
Some get so wrapped up in their grants and book deals, when new information comes around they double down to save their reputation and livelihood (See David Sinclair regarding resveratrol )
And they all avoid information that contradict their recommendations or will flat out lie.
Vegans repeating falsehoods about meat by peddling studies of "meat eaters" having cancer or high blood pressure or this or that, without looking at other confounding factors (dietary or otherwise) is a common tactic.
Carnivores go down the lecithin rabbit hole to the point it seems like a conspiracy theory. They over-exaggerate anti-nutrients in foods, every time they can stretch a truth (Goitrogens in broccoli for instance) they pounce.
Keto folks are right when they say saturated fat was UN-necessarily demonized, but they've started to have a relationship with fat like your average college stoner who wants marijuana legalization who won't shut up about it being a miracle substance with zero consequences. LDL being high can still be a problematic sign. Yes yes, there's different types of LDL and basic lipid panels don't go into the types, and just label it all "bad", but LDL being too high still risks clogged arteries.
And if the so called "leaders" and voices in these communities aren't bad enough, the communities themselves are all cults.
Every last one of them.
My rules for diets is so:
1. Don't eat too often (have more days with 1-2 meals a day than not, the occasional 3 meal a day and occasion days where you fast). Fasting is good for managing weight and blood sugar, but the killer feature of it is autophagy - a process that kicks off our body's ability to prevent cancer.
2. Eat mostly a wide variety of plants for their vitamin and phyto-nutrient profile (eat the colors of the rainbow)
3. Avoid added sodium/salt, added sugars and seed-oils (or any oil high in omega6s). This can be accomplished largely by avoiding processed/packaged/pre-made foods and not going out to eat so much. Don't eat a lot of "treats".
4. Get fats from nuts, salmon, olive oil. When cooking use Olive oil, butter, ghee, beef tallow, or coconut oil. Eat salmon 1-2x a week. Limit fatty red meat. Minimize fried foods.
5. Eat a moderate amount of protein to strike a balance between health span and lifespan.
6. Eat fermented foods. (natto, kimchi, sauerkraut, pickles, yogurt). Natto, doubly so as it's a high source of K2 (which helps calcium go where it's supposed to and the western diet is lacking in it) and nattokinase, which lowers blood pressure.
7. Eat things that lower blood pressure. (natto, garlic, beets (in moderation), flaxseed).
8. Recognize estrogenic foods have a large correlation between lifespan at the cost of testosterone and make your choice.
9. I know the idea of "super foods" gets eye rolls but some things are staples and should be: Green tea, moringa, coffee (through a paper filter), berries, broccoli sprouts (for the sulforaphane) salmon/sardines, kale/watercress/arugula, olive oil. Eat things high in spermidine. (wheat germ, mushrooms, peas).
10. The occasional glass of low-alcohol, low-sulfate red wine (i might have 1-2 on Fri and 1 on Saturday) isn't that bad, but maybe it should be done without. But then again.. i have to enjoy life somehow and somewhere.
11. Don't overdo it with anything too high in oxylates (chia, beets, black tea) and if you do, pair it with a high calcium food and in fact, always ensure you get adequate calcium to avoid kidney stones.
12. Minimize grains (breads, cereals, pasta). But if it's your kid's birthday, have a fucking cupcake or eat his favorite spaghetti dinner.
13. Don't worry about "ketosis". Just eat low carb and low-sugar and occasionally fast. You'll go in and out of ketosis naturally and metabolic flexibility is more important than pissing on a strip and seeing if you're producing ketones 100% of the time.
14. Eat things that lower uric acid, but not too much. Celery, cherries, low-fat/skim dairy.
15. Add lemon or lime to your water.
and after all of this it's exercise, sauna (associated with 40% reduction in all-cause mortality (aside from accidents, suicides, murder, etc..)), de-stress (have fun, meditate) and enjoy life to the best of your ability. foster positive relationships, get a good night's sleep. Don't do drugs, don't smoke, try to avoid toxins to the best of your ability (heavy metals, Phthalates, BPA/BPS/Badge, PFAS', etc.)
I guess if i was giving advice to others it'd be do the above, but if you're in it for weight loss, great - but don't lose too much too fast. This is huge in the keto/fasting community who want the pounds to fly off and end up with heart issues or gout or some such shit after losing 100lbs in a year. Don't do that.
And while there's a role for supplements (i take tested omega3 and vitd supplements), i think it's vital to not rely on them, to spend days doing without them, and to keep them to a minimum. You WILL eventually take one that has heavy metals. it's not regulated, not every batch of every supplement it tested. Most supplements are often going off of new science that's missing the whole picture and people again and again find they're taking stuff where future studies debunks or worse, finds it's harmful. We, often find that the poison is in the dose (4G+ of EPA Omega 3s cause heart issues).
There. That's my exhaustive list after spending 3 years of reading studies, watching youtube videos, joining communities, going keto for 6 months, going vegetarian for 3 months and vegan for 3 more, going carnivore for 3 weeks and experimenting with fasting.
It's the largest study on the subject to my knowledge and concludes an increased longevity for meat-free eating, as well as for fully plant based diets (vegans).
This is the main reason why I don't see any reason to consume animal products when we know full well that it necessitates the exploitation and slaughter of sentient individuals.
I have a hard time with the Adventist studies due to their very well know and obvious bias. It's part of their religious faith that meat brings out "sinful" desires and impulses and they've been rabid activists for vegetarianism through most of the 20th century.
They've influenced policy and their studies and products of companies ran by Adventists (like Kellogs) have helped us arrive at our current health predicament. This is a group of people who are ok with processed foods, seed-oils, high omega6s, as long as it verifies their faith's desire for vegetarianism.
Adventist companies also used to parrot the faulty Ancnel Keys Seven Nations study because it demonized saturated fats as opposed to their precious carbs, and this has harmed us as a society, how we see nutrition, for decades and still continues to.
I don't trust a thing they say, no matter how fleshed out their study is.
They have an agenda,. They're not concerned about human health. Healthy eating is an exploitable byproduct to a larger end goal but the goal itself isn't health or longevity.
and even without reading the study in full - the study will not account for societies with high numbers of centenarians who eat meat - Okinawa's diets are rich in pork. Spain is rich in chicken and fish. This throw a wrench in their gears no matter how large the study is.
There's simply more to diet based health than adherence to cults with religious and political agendas and endless human tribalism.
Additionally - if I'm not mistaken about the study itself, it is yet another observational study asking people to self-report their dietary habits.
Observational studies are why nutritional science, IMHO, seems to insanely contradictory with one study seemingly stating one thing and another saying the opposite. It's why all the red and processed meat studies ended up getting thrown out. (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/30/health/red-meat-heart-can...)
Humans are omnivores for a reason.
What we are and what we should be are two very different things.
We have decade-long studies showing that a plant-based diet is at least as healthy if not healthier than typical omnivorous diets.
This makes killing billions of sentient creatures in monstruous factory-farming conditions with constant suffering all the more morally reprehensible.
We're not torturing them because we need to. We're torturing them because they taste nice.
i belive in striking a balance between the fact that we want to minimize suffering and the reality that existing implies devouring and consumption. these last two things will not only induce suffering to animals but also to other humans.
and its unaviodable. and im not giving myself further neuroticism and anxiety bc i put the weight of the globe and its myriad of problems onto my shoulders which already burden enough selfishly and empathetic ally.
i eat for health.
period. I have a family to take care of. My health isn't just necessary bc I want my own life but bc people depend on me.
and the science isnt settled between vegetarianism and being an omnivore.
not by a long shot.
i will concede those in the west eat too much meat.
so ill extend the olive branch and meet you half way.
but i put my health above that of chickens, fish and the occassional cow.
i feel for them but theyre not people. i barely am capable of processing the horrors that happen to people on this earth.
i dont have room to consider everything that breathes.
Your moral finger wagging, BTW, isn't a way to win hearts and minds. People will just double down as a rebellion against your moral superiority complex. Youre kicking the legs out of your own political cause with your self righteousness
People who talk like this are why redneck "roll coal" as opposed to adopting hybrids and EVs..
Meet people half way.
This was a discussion about health and lifespan and like clockwork here you people come.
B12 isn’t reliably absorbed from meat. Everyone should be taking a b12 supplement unless they eat b12 fortified cereals or get regular blood work but supplements are the cheapest method for most.
“ A careful look at 3,000 men and women in the ongoing Framingham Offspring Study found 39 percent with plasma B12 levels in the “low normal” range--below 258 picomoles per liter.
While this is well above the currently accepted deficiency level of 148 pmol/L, some people exhibit neurological symptoms in the higher range, said study leader Katherine Tucker... The researchers also expected to find some connection between dietary intake and plasma levels, even though other studies found no association. And they did find a connection. Supplement use dropped the percentage of volunteers in the danger zone--plasma B12 below 185 pmol/L--from 20 percent to 8. Eating fortified cereals five or more times a week or being among the highest third for dairy intake reduced, by nearly half, the percentage of volunteers in that zone--from 23 and 24 percent, respectively, to 12 and 13 percent.
Oddly, the researchers found no association between plasma B12 levels and meat, poultry, and fish intake, even though these foods supply the bulk of B12 in the diet. “It’s not because people aren’t eating enough meat,” Tucker said. “The vitamin isn’t getting absorbed.””
https://www.ars.usda.gov/news-events/news/research-news/2000...
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10648266/
>...reality that existing implies devouring and consumption
I don't understand why it implies that. Eating meat probably did play a big role in human evolution. But that's actually a really good reason to avoid meat!
Evolutionary adaptations almost universally trade long-term fitness for short term reproductive success. That's an inevitable consequence of natural selection. This principle is called Antagonistic Plieotoropy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antagonistic_pleiotropy_hypoth...).
The same thing applies to meat-specific adaptations. Which could explain why high-meat diets seem so bad for longevity in a lot of studies (Not this one because this is just a bunch of cross-sectional studies with virtually no adjustments, and they used GDP as a proxy for socioeconomic status. Far better nutritional epidemiology studies are out there).
But my main concern is the ethical issue. The conditions in which factory-farm animals are kept is absolutely abhorrent.
Watch Dominion on YouTube. It's heartbreaking and i don't think most people are aware of what animals go through to come to your plate.
(Joaquin Phoenix is one of the narrators btw)
> but i put my health above that of chickens, fish and the occassional cow.
> i feel for them but theyre not people. i barely am capable of processing the horrors that happen to people on this earth.
I'm not asking you to personally save every animal suffering out there. I too value humans more than animals and would give priority to humans problems.
I'm just asking you to consider minimising your personal contribution to it as far as practically possible.
I just haven't heard of any valid justification for why slaughtering an animal for food is ok but slaughtering humans would be wrong. Every argument I've heard leads to a contradiction or an absurdity.
If it's because humans are more intelligent than animals, then is it morally acceptable to kill a mentally disabled human being? (Most people would say no, thus entailing a contradiction since they're fine with killing the animal of equivalent intelligence).
If it's because humans have moral agency, then is it ok to kill babies and severely autistic people?
If it's because we gain some unique health benefit from eating animals (not convinced of this btw), would it be ok to kill humans if studies showed eating humans also conferred a unique health benefit?
> Your moral finger wagging, BTW, isn't a way to win hearts and minds...
I wasn't trying to :)
Just expanding on the ethical implications the parent comment brought up.
I don't think you can avoid the ethical implications here.
I won't press you on this but I just want people to consider the externalities of their consumption habits.
Sure we are. How do you think we get natural immunity? Ever heard of Chicken Pox parties?
I understand the naturalistic fallacy at play here.
But diet is a different ballgame consisting of a lifetime of complexity via consumption as it interacts with both our genetics and our genetic expression in reaction to our external environment far beyond food.
Acting like it's comparable to wiping our ass with paper is like comparing toddlers rolling a ball on the ground to each other to say... smashing sub-atomic particles together
The level do complexity is so frigging vast and there's a reason its 2022 and its not settled science.
A real grass fed burger is endlessly healthier than a processed "beyond meat" one. For example. Oreos are vegan. Veganism or vegetarianism doesn't imply health automatically
I know vegetarians, keto folk, plaeo crowds, vegans, fasters and even carnivores like to repeat cherry picked studies and cite them for upvotes in their cloisters and communities... But it doesn't make the truth settled in regards to health span and life span (which are not the same thing).
There's zero doubt athletic and even intellectual performance increases with the addition of meat to a diet in a way vegan diets can't compete with.
There's centurains who ate meat all their lives. There's ones who are vegetarian and did. My grandmother in 98. She's a meat eater. Hell, she goes to burger King and Imho, eats badly and has for the last 10 years of her life.
Its just not an easy subject thats going to be solved by tribalism and divergent moral codes.
False.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32780794/
> Objectives: We aimed to compare the effect of consuming plant-based alternative meat (Plant) as opposed to animal meat (Animal) on health factors. The primary outcome was fasting serum trimethylamine-N-oxide (TMAO). Secondary outcomes included fasting insulin-like growth factor 1, lipids, glucose, insulin, blood pressure, and weight.
Conclusions: Among generally healthy adults, contrasting Plant with Animal intake, while keeping all other dietary components similar, the Plant products improved several cardiovascular disease risk factors, including TMAO; there were no adverse effects on risk factors from the Plant products.
> I know vegetarians, keto folk, plaeo crowds, vegans, fasters and even carnivores like to repeat cherry picked studies and cite them for upvotes in their cloisters and communities...
I never claimed a vegan diet is optimal for health span. You can have a healthy diet with or without meat.
Strictly from a health perspective, you're right. We don't need to give up meat to be healthy.
I just meant well-planned vegan diets have shown to be health promoting compared to standard omnivorous diets.
I was just expanding on the ethical concerns the parent comment hinted at. Why subject sentient beings to such suffering when most people can be healthy without them?
My point with the toilet paper comment was that just because we did things in the past is not a valid justification for doing that thing in the present. I was speaking more from a cultural and ethical perspective rather than a health one.
> There's zero doubt athletic and even intellectual performance increases with the addition of meat to a diet in a way vegan diets can't compete with.
Citation needed.
As far as I know there aren't any studies where vegan diets are associated with cognitive decline (but saturated fat from meat was in some studies, but the link was tenuous).
And as for the athletic part, at least for the muscle-building side of things, both plant-based and omnivorous diets have shown to produce similar muscle growth at protein intakes ~1.6g/kg/d or higher.
"From 2001 and 2007, we enrolled as participants 96,000 Adventists, ages 30 to 112, from all 50 U.S. states and Canada."
"Vegetarian diets in AHS-2 are associated with lower BMI values, lower prevalence of hypertension, lower prevalence of the metabolic syndrome, lower prevalence and incidence of diabetes mellitus, and lower all-cause mortality."
"Cox proportional hazards regression analysis (adjusting for age, race, sex, smoking, exercise, education, marital status, alcohol, geographic region, menopause, and hormone therapy) showed reduced all-cause mortality for all vegetarians compared with nonvegetarians (HR: 0.88; 95% CI: 0.80, 0.97). For specific dietary patterns, the HRs were 0.85 (95% CI: 0.73, 1.01) for vegans, 0.91 (95% CI: 0.82, 1.00) for lactoovovegetarians, 0.81 (95% CI: 0.69, 0.94) for pescovegetarians, and 0.92 (95% CI: 0.75, 1.13) for semivegetarians."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4144107/#:~:tex....
- Nutrition and Physical Degeneration https://www.amazon.com/Nutrition-Physical-Degeneration-Westo...
Fact: since I stopped eating meat (and dairy) I don't require beta blockers and chloresterol medicine anymore. I had 5 different meds for my heart and now I have none.
I don't put a lot of faith in the whole Blue Zone diet thing, because like the Ancel Keys's complete bullshit "Seven Countries Study" [0a] which left out nations/data-collected that would have totally made the study come to different conclusion [0b], the Blue Zone diets leave out some inconvenient facts. For example, Spain and Hong Kong are among the regions with the longest lifespans, lots of pork, fish, chicken, and beef in their diet. I feel the whole Blue Zone thing has been debunked from a 100 directions but I still keep coming back to it because tons of other studies tend to back up the general ideas of mostly plants(and a wide variety of them), meat some-times, communal bonds and religious belonging (i struggle with this one). For example:
Studies showing vegetarians are least likely to get cancer [1]
I've also seen studies linking low protein for anyone under 65 and a bit higher for over 65 being credited for longevity [2] The reasoning here is low protein is good for life span, but at a certain point maintaining muscle mass becomes vital to prevent falls in old age.
I've done a ton of health and longevity reading in the past 3 years. Obsessively so. And the conclusions I've come to is that studies tend to trend in a couple directions.
Higher protein (when talking about full amino acid profiles brought by meat and animal products) seems to be geared towards more short-term health-span - you get greater mental performance, better muscle growth, higher reproductive functionality.
Lower protein can come with risks of certain vitamin deficiencies (hence why most blue zone diets aren't totally vegetarian) but overall spur on longevity. And it does this, from my understanding because you're not activating mTor [3] [4] [5] and switching on IGF-1 [6], both of which are switched on by eating alone but more specifically carbs and protein.
Fasting/Time-restricted-eat, a plant-based diet (so getting all those catcheins, Anthocyanins, Polyphenols, Isothiocyanate, antioxidants and other phyto-nutrients ) with a bit of meat (1x a week, and often going for a fatty fish full of omega-3s) seems to be the ticket for long life as long as you're not a neurotic, anxious basket case about it like i am.
High protein diets put strain on kidneys and the pancreas. You can go full carnivore and have a decent looking lipid panel, have good BP, and so forth - hell, you might even solve some auto-immune issues along the way as it's probably the world's greatest elimination diet. But I'm concerned that eventually the damage from the constant mTor activiation and IGF-1 stimulation creates a tax that eventually has to be paid in some fashion or another.
I can't imagine doing without meat entirely is good for us.
I, also, can't imagine that eating meat 6+ times a week, is also good for us.
[0] https://health.usnews.com/wellness/articles/what-is-the-blue...
[0a] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Countries_Study
[0b] https://thenoakesfoundation.org/news/ancel-keys-cholesterol-... (this is an 11 part series)
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/feb/24/vegetar...
[2] https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/protein...
[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6611156/
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J91dVi6W6N4
There's a serious problem with studies of centarians and supercentarians: it turns out they tend to cluster in places that have bad record keeping and/or high crime rates:
https://www.vox.com/2019/8/8/20758813/secrets-ultra-elderly-...
The number of supercentarians dropping with the introduction of birth certificates reminds me of the incidence of UFOs dropping with the widespread introduction of digital cameras.