Again, WHO says Red Meat is cancerous
- Numerous studies have come out against the WHO report (1,2,3)
- Several members of the 2015 review panel objected to majority of the 22-member panel’s decision due to poor cited studies
- An update in 2018 was made
- Hong Kong has the highest meat-consumption for 2019 and show very high longevity — Cancer and Heart disease data does not agree with AHA findings
That’s the claim by the WHO after releasing a report in 2015 stating red meat AND processed meats are cancer-causing. One of the members of the review panel, Dr. David Klurfield, for IACR of WHO expressed his dissent (1,2,3). An update was made and main stream media plus health agencies and medical professionals worldwide has been putting this messaging forward.
It is not just majority of medical professionals and researchers, this has also been evident in Social media — like the blogosphere, twittersphere and Facebook — where they say red meat is dangerous that it’ll lead to heart disease, cancer and even diabetes. The alternative they provide is a Plant-based diet but not the scrutiny of the Science by IARC (1).
Isn’t it astonishing that modern science feels like it’s headed back to the dark ages and the diets we have lived with that caused evolution in our species from having a big gut to developing a big brain is heresy?
- Why is meat now bad for us but not for civilization of people more than a century even thousands of years ago (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)?
- Detractors haven’t definitively proven that saturated fat causes heart disease. The Diet-Heart Hypothesis — the concept that heart disease is primarily caused by cholesterol — is still a Hypothesis (1,2,3,4,5).
- Most Medical doctors do not state the serious side effects of statins. (1,2,3,4)
- Food industries plus Big Pharma and Medical professionals aligned to a Plant-based diet and/or Adventists associate polyunsaturated fats as ‘healthier’ alternative’.
- Centuries ago, civilizations have waged war over control of Salt. Now, salt is dangerous but they initially failed to implicate Sugar. (1,2,3,4,5)
The World Health Organization has a Q&A about the report.
In the report, they state that
Meat processing, such as curing and smoking, can result in formation of carcinogenic chemicals, including N-nitroso-compounds (NOC) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH).
So, why not just go for non-processed meat?
Natural, whole food unprocessed red meat is labelled by IARC as a Group 2A carcinogen.
Red meat was classified as Group 2A, probably carcinogenic to humans.
In the case of red meat, the classification is based on limited evidence from epidemiological studies showing positive associations between eating red meat and developing colorectal cancer as well as strong mechanistic evidence.
Limited evidence means that a positive association has been observed between exposure to the agent and cancer but that other explanations for the observations (technically termed chance, bias, or confounding) could not be ruled out.
You do not need to be a PhD to find issues in the words above. You’ll find that in the Q&A at WHO. As to why it still got the nod of being referred to as a Carcinogen is just beyond some people and this is something that the rest of the world just doesn’t care to mention — most just say it’ll cause you Cancer.
Which country eats the highest amount of meat?
Hong Kong for 2017!
Based on the WHO data, Hong Kongers never live to a ripe old age, right?
Sorry to disappoint …
At one point, Hong Kong lead the world in life expectancy as reported in CNN where they covered the city, being “greener than most”, hospitals, weather and the people.
What types of meat do people in Hong Kong eat?
Fish meat places HK top 5 in the world.
Pig meat has HK number 1, top 12 in poultry, special mention on beef. :)
The Top 4 consumers of eggs is Hong Kong.
Any information on Heart disease like on deaths for Hong Kong?
Yes. Data from Hong Kong’s Department of Health show interesting figures. Between 1981 and 2018, death rates from Coronary Heart disease, CHD has been seen to decline.
Really.
Data comes from Hong Kong’s government.
- In 2018, 33,694 inpatient discharges and deaths were related to coronary heart diseases, accounting for 1.5% of all inpatient discharges and deaths.
- In 2018, the number of deaths were 3,769, accounting for 7.9% of all registered deaths. The crude death rates for male and female were 66.6 and 37.1 per 100,000 population of respective sex.
The overall age-standardized death rate of coronary heart diseases shows decreasing trend in recent years.
Hong Kong has steadily been eating red meat through different decades until they have been at the top spot for several years.
From that same page, death from Myocardial infarctions have also been declining. But for those who do die, they are the older population. As Doctors Peter Attia and Thomas Dayspring puts it, mortality from heart disease is a function of time.
Weren’t we talking about Cancer?
Oops! I almost missed that.
Here’s another HK government site providing details on cancer.
When you check the reports, you’ll notice that Cancer cases and mortality from it has been increasing.
Something doesn’t add up. Right?
We’ll get into that later. But with all this talk of beef and pork and fish, we need something to cook them besides the usual grilling. Also, are the diet that Hong Kong eats is just all meat?
Apart from plain red meat, what makes up a typical diet in Hong Kong?
In the Top 3 through 5, we have roast Goose, Pork and Chicken. Yummy!
My old man told me he and his dad went to Hong Kong once but it wasn’t for the roast Goose or pork. It was one of the delicacies you can eat in Hong Kong during the 60s and 70s. But it’s not fun to tell the Internet about it so I’ll move forward. :)
One of the world’s most delicious cities, Hong Kong offers culinary excitement whether you’re spending HK$50 on a bowl of noodles or HK$2000 on a seafood feast. The best of China is well represented, be it Cantonese, Shanghainese, Northern or Sichuanese. Similarly, the smorgasbord of non-Chinese — French, Italian, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese Indian — is the most diverse in all of Asia.
https://www.lonelyplanet.com/china/hong-kong/narratives/in-location/eating
Hong Kong’s cuisine is pre-dominantly Cantonese. But that doesn’t stop world-class chefs and businesses to server Western delicacies.
Even Hong Kong’s Olympians will never let a good steak pass. Snacks even include rice cakes with peanut butter, cinnamon and granola bars. But they’d also do cheat meals — like Pizza, dessert, American burgers. Heck, your typical Western fast food servings.
Coincidentally, data found in Statista for Hong Kong shows that the top 3 fast food restaurants visited are Mc Donald’s, KFC, and Cafe De Coral.
Global survey reveals HK people’s love for fast food
“For people in Hong Kong and the US, eating fast food has become part of their life”
https://www.scmp.com/article/483153/global-survey-reveals-hk-peoples-love-fast-food
Wait. Didn’t Hong Kong get into an issue with how they cooked food?
How right you are!
Besides Macau and Taiwan, Hong Kong was embroiled in the use of Gutter Oil. (1,2,3,4)
Gutter oil (Chinese: 地沟油; pinyin: dìgōu yóu, or 餿水油; sōushuǐ yóu) is a general term for oil that has been recycled. It can be used to describe the practice of restaurants re-using cooking oil that has already been fried before. It can also be used to describe the processing of waste oil collected from sources such as restaurant fryers, grease traps, slaughterhouse waste and fatbergs.
This included establishments like bakeries, restaurants, retailers and distributors — all who may have used Gutter oil. The gutter oil makers, who have been so ingenuous, blended the oils with oils fit for human consumption. Don’t say this practice exists only in these nations. We don’t really know.
Apart from these obviously harmful oils, Hong Kong’s Consumer Council in 2017 found 46 of 60 cooking oil brands with contaminants and cancer-causing ingredients but as for how long this has been the case is anybody’s guess right now. (1,2)
Despite the incident, this has not stopped Hong Kong’s demand for seed oils but this is not to say that there are no legislations regarding the matter. (1)
Euromonitor’s Felix Wong states that seed oil consumption is on an upward trend in Hong Kong with Peanut oils and other types of vegetable oils leading the way.
In 2019–2024, other vegetable and seed oils are expected to grow at an even more accelerated CAGR of 7% compared to the 4% growth in 2019.
Euromonitor International
China is observed taking a similar trajectory for Seed oils as seen by increasing demand for Soy bean oil. (1)
If you’re wondering about the different fats from oils, please refer below.
OK. They love fast-food and maybe had some issues with their cooking oil. So what?
The British Medical Journal conducted a cohort study on the effects of ultra-processed food and it’s relationship to cancer.
Consumption of ultra-processed foods and cancer risk: results from NutriNet-Santé prospective cohort
“In this large prospective study, a 10% increase in the proportion of ultra-processed foods in the diet was associated with a significant increase of greater than 10% in risks of overall and breast cancer. Further studies are needed to better understand the relative effect of the various dimensions of processing (nutritional composition, food additives, contact materials, and neoformed contaminants) in these associations.”
https://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.k322
If processed foods can do that, how about that cooking oil from hell? Shouldn’t those be in the top list on the IARC on what are carcinogenic?
Strange: Listing of WHO Carcinogenic hazards to humans
A Chinese-style salted fish is a Group 1 carcinogen (known carcinogenic).
The list has Aloe vera extract, identified as probably carcinogenic, a Group 2B carcinogen, and lumps it with red meat. Also in this group, WHO also says that very hot beverages are also a Group 2 carcinogen.
You can find the list here:
[1] https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/general-info/known-and-probable-human-carcinogens.html
[2] https://monographs.iarc.fr/list-of-classifications
PS: I can’t find gutter oil. Or that I’m just too tired right now.
Cancer and Heart Disease are usually linked together
The American Heart Association has stated that heart disease and cancer have been seen to collude.
The American Heart Association
People with more risk factors for cardiovascular diseases were also at higher risk for developing cancer compared to people with lower cardiovascular disease risk.
https://newsroom.heart.org/news/heart-disease-and-cancer-risk-may-be-linked
The American Heart Association Journal reflect the same stance as above
Shared risk factors and biological mechanisms possibly explain this relationship. Indeed, cardiovascular risk factors such as unhealthy diet, tobacco smoking, obesity, diabetes mellitus, and hypertension have been found to be associated with an increased cancer risk.
https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.118.033907
Even the Europen Society of Cardiology takes similar opinion on the matter of heart disease and cancer.
Cancer patients are at higher risk of dying from heart disease and stroke
https://www.escardio.org/The-ESC/Press-Office/Press-releases/Cancer-patients-are-at-higher-risk-of-dying-from-heart-disease-and-stroke
One could argue about the method of cancer therapy does not introduce cardiac toxicity in Hong Kong. But it is well-known that even hospitals in Hong Kong have traditional cancer therapies.
Cancer Treatment Methods, Hong Kong Integrated Oncology Centre
https://www.hkioc.com.hk/cancer-treatment-methods/
Here’s some more.
Contemporary treatment methods, such as tyrosine kinase inhibitors, anthracycline chemotherapy, and immunotherapy regimens are effective in treating different modalities of cancers; however, these reagents act through interference with DNA replication or prevent DNA repair, causing endothelial dysfunction, generating reactive oxygen species, or eliciting non-specific immune responses.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5810267/
Going back to Hong Kong, you noticed the increasing trend in Cancer deaths. But isn’t it equally interesting that death rates from heart disease is downward? Somethings just not right!
A 2015 research paper by Mallory Leeper, “Hong Kong Food Culture, Obesity, and Resolutions”, has shown increasing effect of industrialization on health and nutrition. “Despite all its success, Hong Kong, too, is weighed down by the public health consequences increased by urbanization and diversification.”
https://www.oxy.edu/sites/default/files/assets/UEPI/mleeper_hk_food_culture_obesity_and_resolutions.pdf
The WHO 2015 report on Red meat was erroneous
David Klurfeld says it best — the report is based on weak observational data and doesn’t even have any research to back it up plus the WHO not included failed intervention studies is just too telling.
What is the role of meat in a healthy diet?
David M. Klurfeld
Animal Frontiers, Volume 8, Issue 3, July 2018, Pages 5–10
https://academic.oup.com/af/article/8/3/5/5048762Although the IARC working group on meat and cancer met in October 2015 and a two-page summary was published immediately after (Bouvard et al., 2015), the full monograph was not published until March 2018 (IARC, 2018).
The working group evaluated over 800 epidemiological studies, but only 7 of 14 studies of red meat and 12 of 18 on processed meat found increased risk of colorectal cancer in people eating the most meat.
There was insufficient data on meat intake and cancers at other sites in the body for the group to reach a conclusion. The conclusion is that there is not good evidence that red- or processed-meat consumption is linked to cancer.
Science is not possession of the truth but is the systematic, reproducible pursuit of the answers, and we should depend on reliable science for dietary recommendations.
Thoughts
Based on what I’m currently seeing, information has been mixed and not causative enough to implicate red meat. Plus I’m still wondering about the cancerous fish and Aloe Vera extract. Red through the list and you’ll find really strange items in there.
What’s interesting though is that there are other studies not associating Cancer to red meat. :)
- Meat intake and cause-specific mortality: a pooled analysis of Asian prospective cohort studies
- Strongly heated carbohydrate-rich food is an overlooked problem in cancer risk evaluation
- Recent advances in clinical practice: colorectal cancer chemoprevention in the average-risk population
- Association between red meat consumption and colon cancer: A systematic review of experimental results
I am finding more studies against the report of WHO but it would probably be too much for just this post.
As as was developing this article, I remember coming across interesting readings from Eric Mittenthal at NAMI and Dr. Georgia Ede on her posting at diagnosis:Diet. Nina Teicholz who’s book, The Big Fat Surprise, was something I got hold of a few weeks back and filled with amazing information much like that of Dr. James DiNicolantonio’s The Salt Fix.
#jrv