Well glad I could provide "muse" services. Was it the collagen or super starch? LOL

Hi again JS, I was interested in knowing your thoughts about this article I found today -
http://sciencenordic.com/stone-age-hunters-liked-their-carbs

This just might be the stupidest fucking thing I've read.

JS & Paul: Thanks for the replies. They were very useful. I’m particularly interested in how one responds to the general literature rather than that specific study, so I will focus my reply on JS.

I’ve thought a fair bit about your reply, especially the article you linked me to. I have also spent some time looking at the following three meta studies and the studies they review. It’s worth noting that they use the same studies, the later ones including extra more recent studies, so we shouldn’t double count their evidence.

http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/10/5/439.short
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ijc.10126/full
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ijc.22170/full
In terms of the problems with associational studies: yes, they have many problems. But, they still provide some evidence. So, for example, I think we can agree that the literature fairly strongly rules out the hypothesis “in the global population, consumption of red meat is not correlated with anything that increases the risk of CRC”. Because our probability must still sum to one, the probability we might have assigned to that theory has to be spread between competing theories (according to Bayes rule). One of them is that the consumption of red meat (all red meat, not just grain fed or hormone-ridden or processed). The question is, do we have good reason to suspect something else is going on?

Not many of these studies control for many things we might like them to control for (smoking, obesity, energy intake etc.) but those who do still find positive associations. Yes, as you say, there is data that vegetarianism is associated with an increase in cancer risk, but that could just be a case of there being a healthy amount of red meat intake and either side being non-ideal. Now, I’m not saying I support these theories, but that if we don’t consider them, we are making the same mistake that would lead one to mistake an RCC for an associative study.

Many of the studies either include “junk meat” or fail to control for various things that probably undermine the study. If we could find a few studies that had a good collection of control variables and a good definition of red meat, and had an equally strong correlation as the other studies, I would have greater worries. The worst is this (http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/97/12/906.long) which seems to have a reasonably fair definition of red meat, large sample size, and good controls still finding an association.

I would say then that we should really put our faith in a few hypotheses. One, the mainstream belief that red meat causes cancer. You may have a low prior probability for this owed to evolutionary arguments, in which case your posterior probability may remain relatively low. Two, people who eat a lot of red meat tend to eat with other carcinogenic foods (e.g. refined (or unrefined) grains). Three, grain fed red meat is as bad for you as mainstream health advices (or worse, to account for the fact that some in the studies are probably eating grass fed). Four, the FFQ surveys are completely borked in a systematic enough way to provide the data. (not too sure on this way).

Finally, JS, what do you mean when you say “[i]f red meat caused cancer, we’d all be dead…because we’re made out of it”? This seems rather quick! Yes, I agree, it seems red meat can’t cause cancer by being close to it, but being made out red meat and digesting it seem different enough for this statement to be rather flimsy.

(BTW, do you have any advice for paleo for a student with not great shared kitchen space? It’s a dorm type situation.)

Best,

Farn

great article js....i tried a low carb,,meat intensive way of eating 4 years ago and it brought on anxiety and panic attacks which i thought were heart related as i had never experienced anxiety at that level...my doctor sent me for a stress test then a nuclear stress test and finally a agiogram which showed one artery pluged at 50%,,,im 56 ,,the change in diet broght on a 30 lbs weight loss...i went back to my normal diet which included a lot more carbs and my anxiety went away,,i have read of other people being affected with anxiety on a low varb diet,,,can you comment on this please,,,,,,,,,,,,leo