http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1 ... death.html

Steak and hot dogs linked to early death

It gives a new meaning to the phrase "meat is murder": a study of more than half a million Americans has found that consuming steaks, hot dogs and other red and processed meats significantly increased participants' chances of dying during the decade in which they were tracked.

Women who consumed the most red meat – 66 grams (2.3 ounces) per 1000 calories – were roughly 36% more likely to die than women who ate the least red meat – 9.1 grams (0.3 ounces). For men, a similar difference in red meat consumption, upped death rates by 31%.

To put it the other way around, the researchers say that 11% of deaths in men and 16% of deaths in women could be prevented if people who eat a lot of red meat cut their consumption.

"This is probably the biggest and most carefully done study on the relationship between diet and mortality that I've seen," says Barry Popkin, an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, who was not involved in the study.

The study, led by researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Rockville, Maryland, followed about 545,000 men and women between the ages of 50 and 71. Between 1995 and 2005, 47,976 men and 23,276 women participating in the study died.

Additional factors?

Upon enrollment, participants filled out an extensive questionnaire of their diet over the past year. Since no one can remember exactly what they've eaten a year ago, the researchers asked participants exactly what they had eaten on a previous day. They then adjusted the yearly "food diaries" according to how good the subjects were at recalling what they ate the day before.

The researchers also adjusted their estimates based on participants' age, weight, smoking history, total food intake and other factors that might confound any association between diet and mortality.

This increased the chances that researchers would uncover a real association between red and processed meats and death rates, but these measures do not eliminate the possibility that other factors could explain the link, says Rashmi Sinha, the NCI epidemiologist who led the study.

"It's unlikely we're ever going to feed people meat and see what happens," she says.

Cancer and heart disease explain much of the association between red meat and mortality. Men who ate the most red meat were 22% more likely to die of cancer and 27% more likely to die of heart disease, compared with men who ate red meat sparingly.

Women who ate the most steaks and hamburgers were 20% more likely to die of cancer and 50% more likely to die of heart disease, compared with women who consumed the lowest levels.

Consumption cut

Participants ate less processed meat – think hot dogs, pepperoni and sausage – but these foods seemed even more potent. Men who consumed the highest levels of these meats – an average of 19 grams (0.7 ounces) per 1000 calories – were 16% more likely to die during than study compared to men who ate averaged 5 grams (0.2 ounces) per 1000 calories.

For women, the difference between 3.8 (0.1 ounces) and 16 grams (0.6 ounces) of processed meats per 1000 calories upped the odds of death by a quarter.

"You eat a hot dog a week you're going to up, quite a bit, your risk of death in a 10-year period," says Popkin. His advice: "Don't eat processed meat," and consume red meat in moderation.

However, doctors and nutritionists have been offering the same advice for years, Popkin notes, and such warnings can only go so far to reduce meat consumption.

He argues, instead, that governments in the US and Europe ought to curtail farm subsidies that keep meat artificially cheap, as well as factor the environmental costs associated with meat production.

"The whole focus of the environmental movement seems to be on cars and coal, but we have the lowly pig producing a hell of a lot of carbon," he says.

Journal reference: Archives of Internal Medicine (vol 169, p 562)

looks like im fucked

I'd rather die at 80 having lived a happy life, than 85 years with less than great food.

There's a lot of great food out there that doesn't involve red meat or cold cuts. My mom is a vegetarian, so some of my favorite foods are vegetarian dishes. That doesn't mean that red meat is bad. You just shouldn't eat too much of it.

although i'd really be fine with avoiding hot dogs for the rest of my life. not a big fan.

anyway, does this really surprise anyone? it's good to have a concrete study on the subject, but this is sort of supporting the status quo is it not?

No, it's not. This provides real data associating the eating of measured quantities of red meat to the freqency of death. Anecdotal evidence really doesn't tell you anything. For example, estrogen was prescribed to post-menopausal women because estrogen mitigated the symptoms of menopause, so it was thought that estrogen must be the reason that pre-menopausal women had a lower rate of heart disease then post-menopausal women or men. A long-term longitudinal study showed definitively that this was not the case, and that those women who took estrogen long-term actually had higher rates of heart disease. Similarly, the common wisdom was that red meat is simply bad for you. This study shows that eaten in moderate amounts, it is a fine source of protein and nutrients. And we learn, at least to some degree, what constitutes a "moderate" amount.

That's immediately what I thought of.

SLH is right: everything in moderation. eat a spinach salad (no iceberg lettuce, people) before your steak, and top it off with a serving of vanilla frozen yogurt with strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries. then walk/run/swim a few miles the next morning. done and done.

Nope. Frozen embryos not born, but thrown into waste basket: greater chance of death than for the born.

I ALWAYS take the italian route and eat my salad after dinner...much more enjoyable to me anyway....btw, I'm having a 22 oz bone in ribeye tonight

i guess common wisdom varies from place to place, but it seems my heart, my head, and the people around me have always taught me that moderation when it comes to something like red meat, alcohol, or sweets won't kill you, but overindulgence can lead to bad effects. however, i don't necessarily take that advice, but i have other goals aside from simply living longer.

So does this now mean pork hot dogs are better for you than beef ones?

The Jews are fucked.

Holy Cow, I can't even finish a 6 oz steak.

sometimes it's about living better, friend.

One of my coworkers was diabetic and insisted on having steak every night.

I would like to extend an invitation to my meat-loving friends in the States to come to Argentina for the best steaks you'll ever find, bar none, anywhere in the entire world.

right?

22 oz is insane.


how'd that work out?

I give you the ribeye from Quality Meats on 57th st.....730 reservation tonight




I will be having goose fat mashed potatos on the side

you have an unfavorable position on feeder cattle or something?

goose fat mashed potatoes sound gross.