Comments on: Does Red Meat Cause Colon Cancer?

By: Are there studies re: Primal style eating and colon cancer | Mark's Daily Apple Health and Fitness Forum page

Sat, 09 Jul 2011 19:51:44 +0000

[...] name it. Plus, the quality of the meat and how its raised and processed matters. Google search- Does Red Meat Cause Colon Cancer? : Naked Food Cooking That Paleo Guy: Carnosine, Colons, and Cancer I narrowly avoided colon cancer myself in 1991. I [...]

By: To Bean Or Not To Bean, That Is The Question (Legumes, Lectins, and Human Health) | The Blog of J.D. Moyer

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 03:21:40 +0000

[...] Unprocessed red meat may also slightly raise the chance of colon cancer, but the risks are less than those incurred by obesity or lack of exercise. And before you smack me in the face with your copy of The China Study, please read this detailed critique by nutrition blogger Denise Minger. [...]

By: Tuesday, January 11, 2011 « CrossFit Solana Beach

Tuesday, January 11, 2011 « CrossFit Solana Beach — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 06:08:45 +0000

[...] Have to be Part of a Complete Breakfast, and Just Say No…To Juice? for more on this topic. Colon cancer has been linked to eating red meat in some studies, notably in North and South America, but there [...]

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advantage flea control for dogs — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 15:42:14 +0000

the basic lesson is, anything in excess is bad for you. you have to moderate your meat consumption and balance it with fruits and veggies.
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By: This has to end!!

This has to end!! — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 18:33:31 +0000

[...] Stop being stupid. Here you go, nice little article with linked sources for your convenience: http://www.fitnessspotlight.com/2008…-colon-cancer/ As far back as history dates we have imported/exported goods all over the world. We were made [...]

By: Mike OD

Mike OD — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:27:33 +0000

What I get from all this is that all “red meat” by generic definition is not created equal (as a processed burger is not the same as a grass fed steak), higher intakes of fruits/vegetables is recommended, vegetable oils (and other unstable cooking fats) need to be removed, and most societies who have a history of meat usually see their health turn for the worse once more modern (westernization) foods are introduced.

That being said the amount of protein one actually “needs” per day is pretty low compared to what many eat as well (although you still do need calories to come from some place).

By: tvb

tvb — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:33:05 +0000

Click on the link, below and look at figure 27-13, for a more comprehensive chart of meat consumption versus colon cancer rates for different countries. Quite a different story when you don’t just cherry-pick one example (Argentina).

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bookshelf/br.fcgi?book=cmed6&part=A6663

By: tvb

tvb — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:23:01 +0000

Apart from the poor logic of the Argentine example, that was highlighted earlier, the 1975 Rowland Phillip’s study (of 7th-day adventists versus non-7th day adventists doctors) stated that:

“Adventists show statistically significant relative risks for colon cancer of 2.8 for past use of meat. For current food use, the significant relative risks are 2.3 for beef, 2.7 for lamb, and 2.1 for a combined group of highly saturated fat foods. This strongly suggests that the lactoovo-vegetarian diet may protect against colon cancer. ”

Yet the author of this article stated that: “In 1975, Rowland Philips compared Seventh-Day Adventists physicians, who do not eat meat, with non-Seventh Day Adventist physicians, and found that the vegetarian doctors had higher rates of gastrointestinal and colon-rectal cancer deaths.”

IN OTHER WORDS, HE CLAIMS THE VERY OPPOSITE OF WHAT THE STUDY ACTUALLY SHOWED !?!?!?

In summary, there are lots of variable involved, but lots of evidence that red and processed meats increase the risk for colon cancer. That said, I think that this uses poor logic, explicitly wrong claims (e.g. the Phillips study), and an overall biased agenda to try and prove otherwise. I’m not sure what his agenda is for doing so, but I fear that he may be giving some people a false sense of security with their red-meat-rich-diets. I eat a decent amount of red meat so would love to believe him, but I see no reason to do so.

By: skustes

skustes — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:12:54 +0000

Exactly! Too many studies fail to take into account all of the variables, instead focusing on the author’s pet ideas.

Cheers
Scott

By: skustes

skustes — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:12:00 +0000

Actually, there’s very little real research on red meat solely. It’s all based around lifestyle and epidemiological types of studies are pretty well useless. If you think about the types of people that avoid red meat in the US and other Westernized nations, they also tend to do other things that make them healthy, such as exercising, focusing on unprocessed foods, eating plenty of fruits and vegetables, not smoking, drinking less, fewer sweets, etc.

There is simply no real research (that I’ve seen) that measures a) the effects of only red meat, b) healthy red meat (see my issues in the article about lumping processed meats in with steaks and roasts, along with the grass-fed/grain-fed issue), or c) red meat consumption amongst all-around healthy red meat eaters, like those of us that eat more vegetables than your average vegetarian along with our grass-fed beef.

In fact, if anyone is jumping to conclusions, it’s the study authors that take a study with myriad variables and say “yep, it was the red meat.” They’re merely jumping to the conclusion they had before the study. There have been far too many cultures that have been healthy on diets with lots of red meat for Argentina to be considered an outlier….besides that outliers often point to holes in the premises.

Cheers
Scott