More red meat, more mortality?

[JoeM]

Hey Rip,

My critical faculties are just not up to evaluating this, this morning, and I would really like to hear your (or other folks on the board's) take on it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/he...t-disease.html

Basically it seems like reasonably sound science -- controlling for other obvious variables, consumption of red meat leads to a 12% higher rate of mortality overall. Is that number crazy small? Is the study otherwise obviously flawed? Do you plan to change your own consumption habits after having read it?

Would really love to hear some thoughts on this...

Best,
Joe

[Mark Rippetoe]

Taubes and Eades have already posted about this report. People: it is the New York Times, and it is a standard nutritional science propaganda piece, from the data, to the analysis, to the conclusions. The sad fact is that the English majors who write articles about bad science end up interpreting this bullshit for the masses in a way that is consistent with the predetermined viewpoint we're all supposed to share.

You KNOW this is bullshit. Fuck These People.

[Schwiggity]

How are they controlling for other variables while using self-report data? The one thing that the "Science" sections of news websites never seem to understand: correlation =/= causation.

[Dave 321]

The obese smokers like their red meat... Big Deal...

[Shaun]

How exactly do you control for variables such as smoking and not being physically fit? It sounds like the authors of the article just slotted that line in there without knowing what it means.

[andrewg]

Hey Rip,

My critical faculties are just not up to evaluating this, this morning, and I would really like to hear your (or other folks on the board's) take on it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/he...t-disease.html

Basically it seems like reasonably sound science -- controlling for other obvious variables, consumption of red meat leads to a 12% higher rate of mortality overall. Is that number crazy small? Is the study otherwise obviously flawed? Do you plan to change your own consumption habits after having read it?

Would really love to hear some thoughts on this...

Best,
Joe

The long and short of it is that is a long-term observational study, and researchers should not be drawing conclusions about the relationships between variables (meat consumption and mortality) for this kind of study. The researchers did not attempt to control for any other variables, and because this was not an experimental study they did not even manipulate any variables. The most the researchers could do would be to offer normative data - statistical descriptions of these groups of people. Also, this article doesn't say what the initial risk of mortality was. A 20% increase in mortality is statistically significant but may not be actually significant if the rate goes from 1% to 1.2%.

[Alberto Velazquez]

I'm with Rip on this one. Besides the New York Times is "Pravda on the Hudson".

[Culican]

Taubes and Eades have already posted about this report. People: it is the New York Times, and it is a standard nutritional science propaganda piece, from the data, to the analysis, to the conclusions. The sad fact is that the English majors who write articles about bad science end up interpreting this bullshit for the masses in a way that is consistent with the predetermined viewpoint we're all supposed to share.

You KNOW this is bullshit. Fuck These People.

You mean the English and Communiications majors with a solid "C" average all the way through school.

[rtamesis]

Zoë Harcombe actually read the paper and the data (unlike the NY Times) and IMHO did a thorough job eviscerating it and the authors' shoddy conclusions. And these guys call themselves scientists?

http://www.zoeharcombe.com/2012/03/r...l-bad-science/

[Stanimal5]

"People who ate more red meat were less physically active and more likely to smoke and had a higher body mass index, researchers found. Still, after controlling for those and other variables...." <<This must be the part of the study where they inevitably put the test subjects on some stationary bicycles for a bit.