March 2009

You are currently browsing the monthly archive for March 2009.

roast beefYou might have seen an article in your newspaper or online touting a recent study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine that “strongly” linked red meat consumption with cancer and an increased risk of death. Heck, how could you miss it? Google shows 547 new articles about the study, and it was mentioned in just about every major newspaper in the U.S.

(That’s not an accident, by the way. It’s an intentional attack by the tyrannical meat-hating scientific majority, the same folks who brought us the “cholesterol causes heart disease” and “saturated fat is bad for you” myths.)

Trouble is – as is so often the case – the study is deeply flawed. In fact, anyone with training in research methodology might find themselves wondering “where’s the beef?” after they read it. In the end it’s just another piece of worthless propaganda parading as medical research. It tells us a lot more about the biases and motives of the researchers, and the incompetence of the media reporting on it, than it does about the effect of red meat consumption on human health.

Here are my “top 10″ reasons to ignore this study and continue to eat your grass-fed, organic red meat:

  1. It was an observational study. Observational studies can show an association between two variables (i.e red meat consumption and death), but they can never show causation (i.e. that eating red meat caused the deaths). A simple example of the difference between correlation and causation is that elevated white blood cell count is correlated with infections. But that doesn’t mean elevated white blood cell counts cause infections!
  2. The relative risk reduction (RRR) was slightly over 1.0. Most researchers don’t pay attention to an RRR under 2.0, due to the notorious difficulties involved with this type of research.
  3. Two articles were published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition at around the same time that directly contradicted these results. The first study pooled data from 13 studies and found that risk of colorectal cancer was not associated with saturated fat or red meat intake. The second study found that there was no difference in mortality between vegetarians and meat eaters.
  4. The authors didn’t adequately control for other dietary factors known to increase morbidity and mortality. As another commentator pointed out in her analysis of this study, “Americans get their “cancer causing” red meat served to them on a great big white bun with a load of other carbohydrates (soda, chips, fries) and inflammation-causing n-6 vegetable oils (chips, fries, salad dressings) on the side.” It’s more likely (based on other studies, including the two mentioned above) that the increase in deaths was caused by the junk food surrounding the red meat and not by the meat itself.
  5. The basis of measurement is a “detailed questionnaire”. Questionnaires about one’s diet are always error prone as remarkably few people remember accurately what they eat on any given day, let alone over a period of years. Furthermore, most people lie about what they actually eat, especially now that proper diet has been given a quasi-religious significance and eating poorly is equated with being morally inferior.
  6. Check out this quote from the Archives of Internal Medicine study:

    “Red meat intake was calculated using the frequency of consumption and portion size information of all types of beef and pork and included bacon, beef, cold cuts, ham, hamburger, hotdogs, liver, pork, sausage, steak, and meats in foods such as pizza, chili, lasagna, and stew”.

    In other words, even those people who ate things like hot dogs and hamburgers (with buns made of refined white flour), and who ate pizza (on refined white flour crusts) were included in the ‘red meat’ group. Also, those who ate processed or cured meats, such as ham, bacon, sausage, hot dogs, or cold cuts (with possible nitrates) were included in the ‘red meat’ group. And those who ate prepared food (with unknown additives and preservatives) such as pizza, chili, lasagna, and stew were also included in the ‘red meat’ group. Therefore, this study does absolutely nothing to prove that red meat, and not these processed and highly refined foods, is the culprit.

  7. The quality of the meat consumed in the study was not taken into account. Highly processed and adulterated “factory-farmed” meats like salami and hot dogs are lumped together with grass-fed, organic meat as if they’re the same thing. It’s likely that very little of the meat people ate in the study was from pasture-fed animals. Factory fed animals are fed corn (high in polyunsaturated, omega-6 fat), antibiotics, and hormones, all of which negatively impact human health.
  8. We don’t know anything about the lifestyles of the different study groups. Were they under stress? Did they lose their jobs? Did they have other illnesses? Did they live in a toxic environment? All of these factors contribute significantly to disease and mortality.
  9. We don’t know if the people in the study ate more sugar, processed food, artificial sweeteners, preservatives, additives or fast food – all of which are known to cause health problems.
  10. We don’t know if the people who ate more red meat were better off financially than the people who ate less red meat, and thus had more exposure to the “medical industrial complex” – which, as you know from my previous article, kills more than 225,000 people per year and is the 3rd leading cause of death in this country.

I could go on, but I think you get the idea. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.

Me? I’m gonna go have a big, juicy, grass-fed steak.

Further recommended reading

  1. Meat and Mortality. A great critique of the study by Dr. Michael Eades, author of Protein Power.
  2. More on Meat & Sustainability. A Challenge to Environmentalists.
  3. The Red Scare. Another insightful analysis over at Mark’s Daily Apple.

stressTwenty years ago doctors were still telling us that stress had nothing to do with conditions such as depression, autoimmune disease and cancer. Patients suffering from these conditions often knew otherwise. But the conviction of patients alone wasn’t enough to change the doctor’s minds.

Times have changed. These days, new studies linking stress to disease are released almost daily. We now have a much better understanding of how stress causes disease. In fact, we have a new field – psychoneuroimmunology – dedicated entirely to the study of those mechanisms.

Many researchers (myself included) have come to believe that stress is the single most important causative factor in the disease process. Heart disease and cancer are the top two causes of death in the U.S. each year. Stress has been conclusively linked to both of these conditions. That means stress is at least partially responsible for the majority of deaths each year.

This is where research conducted in animals has provided critical information. Initial data by investigators, such as Robert Sapolsky at Stanford University, suggested that stress might promote the death of neurons, suggesting that the volume reductions in patients with PTSD might reflect the loss of nerve cells. More recent research by Bruce McEwen and colleagues at Rockefeller University indicates that stress can cause neurons to shrink or retract their connections.

A new paper by Hajszan and colleagues at Yale University suggests that stress-related reductions in synapses in the hippocampus are directly related to the emergence of depression-like behavior. This is yet another contribution to the already significant body of medical literature correlating stress with depression.

So how can you minimize the harmful effects of stress in an increasingly stressful world?

  1. Practice mindfulness. In particular, mindfulness-based stress reduction is a clinically proven way to reduce stress. You can order instruction CDs here.
  2. Get plenty of sleep. The most powerful approach to improving sleep quality I’m aware of is called the Sounder Sleep system. Order CDs or download MP3s here.
  3. Enjoy life. Recent studies have indicated that experiencing more pleasure is one of the most potent ways to reduce stress. Listening to music, making love, receiving a massage, taking a walk in the woods, cuddling a pet… all of these activities are highly therapeutic. Watching TV and surfing the Net don’t have the same effect.
  4. Eat well. Follow these nutritional principles to increase your capacity to handle stress.

bandaidDrugs comprise the major treatment modality of scientific medicine. A recent article in the New York Times revealed that over half of Americans regularly take prescription drugs for chronic health problems. Sadly, many people don’t realize that the drugs they’re taking could be making their condition worse.

Most drugs don’t cure illness. They just suppress symptoms. Unfortunately, drugs also suppress functions. Though drugs provide symptom relief in the short term, over time they may worsen the underlying condition because they interfere with our body’s self-healing mechanisms. For example, many people take ibuprofen or other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) to cope with arthritis and inflammatory conditions. While NSAIDs are effective in reducing pain and inflammation in the short-term, they are also known to reduce blood flow to cartilage. Since blood carries all of the nutrients and immune substance necessary for tissue repair, NSAIDs can actually worsen the original problem when taken chronically.

The second problem is that, by definition, drugs correct a specific imbalance by causing at least one other and often several other imbalances. When a drug is introduced into the body to address a malfunction in one biochemical pathway, that drug inevitably interacts with many other pathways.

The mapping of these pathways in recent genetic research underscores the danger of pharmaceutical drugs. The diagram below shows the interactions among a small set of cellular proteins found in a fruit fly. Proteins encased in ovals are grouped according to specific pathway functions. Connecting lines indicate protein-protein interactions. Protein interconnections among the different pathways reveal how interfering with one protein may produce profound “side effects” upon other related pathways.1

protein map
Complicating the phenomenon of so-called “side effects” is that biological systems are redundant. The same protein molecule may be used in several different systems of the body, but it has a completely different function in each of them.

Histamine is a perfect example of this. Histamine is a chemical that initiates the cell’s stress response. When histamine is present in the bloodstream of the arms and legs, it starts a local inflammatory reaction in those tissues. But if histamine is present in the blood vessels of the brain, it enhances the growth and function of specialized neurons there.

One of the most amazing features of the body’s signaling system is its specificity. When you have a poison oak rash on your arm, histamine is released in that specific area only to activate an inflammatory response to the allergen. Likewise, if you’re under significant stress, histamine is released only in the brain to enhance the function of neurons.

Unfortunately, pharmaceutical drugs have no such specificity. When you take an antihistamine to deal with the itchiness of an allergic rash, the drug is distributed systemically. It affects histamine receptors wherever they are located throughout the whole body. So, while the antihistamine will curb the blood vessels’ inflammatory response and reduce the allergic symptoms of the rash, it will also enter the brain and affect nerve function – which causes drowsiness.

The recent hormone replacement therapy (HRT) debacle is a tragic example of the inherent risks of pharmaceutical drugs.  Estrogen is best known for its function on the female reproductive system.  However, more recent studies have shown that estrogen also plays an important role in the normal function of blood vessels, the heart and the brain.  That ‘s why synthetic estrogen hormones that were prescribed to alleviate menopausal symptoms ended up causing cardiovascular disease and neural dysfunctions such as strokes.

No matter how “targeted” drugs are, they are still relatively crude, blunt instruments when compared to the body’s highly sophisticated immune system. Prescription drugs are are much more like sledgehammers or shotguns than the “magic bullets” they are made out to be.

In the next article, we’ll take a closer look at the consequences of side effects caused by prescription drugs. Until then, I welcome your questions and comments!

  1. Lipton, B. H. (2008). The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter, & Miracles (illustrated edition.). Hay House.

Bad Behavior has blocked 803 access attempts in the last 7 days.