The internet is buzzing. All the keto, carnivore, or whatever-is-trendy-now websites are linking to one study, shouting that we finally have proof—meat isn’t harmful, it actually improves your health!
Let’s take a look:
https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/10.1139/apnm-2023-0594
On the surface, everything seems to add up: the more meat you eat, the lower your risk of death, including from cancer. So what’s the catch? There is one, and it’s very cleverly hidden.
The study made only one mistake, but it was an unforgivable one that completely invalidates it. No adjustments were made for wealth and some lifestyle factors. Why is this so important? Statistically, people who eat little meat are not on a vegetarian diet, but are simply poor. Alcohol abuse and nicotine addiction are much more common among poor people. The poor also do not have access to doctors, especially in the US. Suffice it to say that the difference in life expectancy between the richest and poorest groups is as much as 15 years. 15 years! One year is enough to skew the results.
To date, numerous studies have been conducted analyzing the impact of meat consumption on disease risk. All of those that were conducted correctly, i.e., those that took lifestyle into account, yielded the same result: red meat is one of the most harmful things you can eat. Of course, the meat lobby occasionally sponsors monsters like the one above. People believe it because when someone says something that agrees with their worldview, logic ceases to matter.
However, nothing beats the 2022 study, which was also widely cited on the internet
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8881926
Data from 175 countries was examined, and it turned out that people who eat more meat live longer. The error here is so obvious that it is glaringly apparent. More than half of the countries analyzed are so poor that people there are literally starving to death. It is obvious that someone who eats meat in such a country will live longer, perhaps even several times longer statistically. They are in the small group of lucky people who have something to eat at all, can probably afford a doctor, have a roof over their heads, and live in a city where there is police protection.
Unfortunately, this is the case with all the “evidence” that meat is healthy. There will always be a “but.”