• Atelopus-zeteki@fedia.io
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    28 days ago

    Let’s begin by reading the article, and noting this key sentence: "“Habitual consumption of even small amounts of processed meat, sugary drinks, and trans fatty acids is linked to increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, ischemic heart disease and colorectal cancer,” said lead author of the study, Dr. Demewoz Haile, a research scientist at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle. "

    Health effects associated with consumption of processed meat, sugar-sweetened beverages and trans fatty acids: a Burden of Proof study https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-025-03775-8#author-information

    Abstract

    Previous research suggests detrimental health effects associated with consuming processed foods, including processed meats, sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) and trans fatty acids (TFAs). However, systematic characterization of the dose–response relationships between these foods and health outcomes is limited. Here, using Burden of Proof meta-regression methods, we evaluated the associations between processed meat, SSBs and TFAs and three chronic diseases: type 2 diabetes, ischemic heart disease (IHD) and colorectal cancer. We conservatively estimated that—relative to zero consumption—consuming processed meat (at 0.6–57 g d−1) was associated with at least an 11% average increase in type 2 diabetes risk and a 7% (at 0.78–55 g d−1) increase in colorectal cancer risk. SSB intake (at 1.5–390 g d−1) was associated with at least an 8% average increase in type 2 diabetes risk and a 2% (at 0–365 g d−1) increase in IHD risk. TFA consumption (at 0.25–2.56% of daily energy intake) was associated with at least a 3% average increase in IHD risk. These associations each received two-star ratings reflecting weak relationships or inconsistent input evidence, highlighting both the need for further research and—given the high burden of these chronic diseases—the merit of continuing to recommend limiting consumption of these foods.

    Then I hit a paywall. Anyone got a ladder?

    • joshchandra@midwest.social
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      27 days ago

      One of us is gonna have to email one of the authors to ask for a copy. I’ve read that they want the public to read their work and that the paywall is just like a default setting.

    • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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      28 days ago

      Eh, “refuse” makes sausage sound worse than it is. In the modern world anyplace with a food inspection system will typically see sausage made from cuts of meat that are perfectly edible but don’t meet the grading standards likely to sell on the shelf , or the excess pieces of muscle left over after breaking primal cuts down into smaller pieces. No one wants to buy USDA certified Meh grade steak, or a palm sized wedge of uneven thickness. So they get sent off to make hamburger, sausage, and various canned or commercial meat products that don’t need to be pretty.

      Processed meat also includes much more benign seeming foods, like sandwich meat, ground meats, and bacon. We’ve known for a while that eating meat, and more so red meat, is a risk for colon problems. Red meats are more likely to be processed and therefore cheap and salty.

      The new thing the study adds is that there isn’t a lower bound. For a lot of things there’s a quantity that isn’t associated with any issues, and it’s only when you go above that limit that the risk goes up.

      • Krudler@lemmy.world
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        27 days ago

        Truth.

        Yesterday I opened a huge bung of ground beef that I got from Costco.

        Fried up 1/3 of it up and when I tasted it… Damn that’s f’kking bottom round roast beef 😋

        • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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          27 days ago

          One of the other interesting things in the US is that different states can have different laws for meat standards, as long as they meet or exceed USDA minimums. They can’t, however, advertising that fact because it’s a violation of interstate trade.
          So in the US, a legal hotdog ranges from a blend of the trimmings above and what can be removed from the bone with a power washer, up to “hot dogs must be made only of the product of primal cuts with no trimmings or waste meat”.

  • TrackinDaKraken@lemmy.world
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    26 days ago

    I felt shitty, I made changes to my diet and exercise, I feel much better now.

    It doesn’t take research to convince me that processed foods, especially industrial, large scale, profit-above-all-else, processed food is bad for me.

    These results shouldn’t surprise anyone, and I don’t think they do. But, people will find excuses to keep doing unhealthy things they enjoy, and that is their prerogative.

    • KingPorkChop@lemmy.ca
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      26 days ago

      Some of this food isn’t great for you, but if you only have it now and then it shouldn’t be a problem.

      Moderation and a diverse diet is key.

  • CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social
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    28 days ago

    “As little as one hot dog a day”, doesn’t really strike me as a great example of a “small” amount of processed meat. I’d generally say I ate a lot of something if I had it literally on a daily basis.

    • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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      28 days ago

      Totally agree on hotdogs, but if someone ate a slice of standard toast for breakfast every day I wouldn’t say they ate a lot of toast.
      Point being, I don’t think the frequency can be considered independent of the thing.

      They maybe could have phrased it better as “consumption of as little as 2 ounces of processed meat, about one hotdog, a day…”.
      A hotdog is a relatable unit of measure for an amount of food, but a hotdog a day isn’t normal. A hotdog one day, a deli sandwich the next, and so one though isn’t preposterous.

      • Flamekebab@piefed.social
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        28 days ago

        …constantly fails the engineering exam… …constantly eats roast beef…

        I love Red Dwarf so much.

  • Krudler@lemmy.world
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    27 days ago

    I’m not a nutritional epidemiologist.

    But I’ve started to get into learning about it in the last few months.

    It’s really starting to feel like this is a giant bullshit field, and as much as they are trying to find useful results, there’s something severely wrong with how they seem to arbitrarily assign causality and correlation.

    In a contrived example: “People who live near power lines have more cancer” - “No, poor people live near power lines because they’re poor, and poor people have more cancer”

    What are the kind of people that eat processed hot dogs? I can promise you they are not millionaires. I can promise you it’s not people who can afford filet mignon but decide to have a steamed hot dog. It’s not people who work out and take care of their bodies. It’s not people who cook.

    So when a study is done like this, what answer are you actually getting? probably finding out that the type of people who eat processed meat are more prone to these conditions for a variety of considerations that are just totally left out of the analysis.

    • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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      27 days ago

      Yes, poor people eat poor quality food more often but the food is bad either way.

      Here’s a good tip, look at allllll of the specific foods that a doctor would tell a pregnant person to avoid. Non-pregnant people should also avoid them, and processed meats have been on that list for a long time.

      • queueBenSis@sh.itjust.works
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        27 days ago

        that’s not true. pregnant people are told to stay away from sushi because of immunity with raw fish. you should also not eat papaya while pregnant because it can cause premature contractions. you’re making a very broad generalization that the recommendation to pregnant people is completely nutrition based, but there’s many factors when growing a life inside you.

        like in early pregnancy, you eat foods high in choline. that’s not because foods low in choline are bad for you, but because during early fetal development, choline builds neural tubes

        • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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          26 days ago

          Sure there are exceptions. You haven’t made any point about whether processed meats cause poor health outcomes though. They do, and its been shown over and over again, but people don’t like someone telling them they have bad habits.

          • queueBenSis@sh.itjust.works
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            26 days ago

            that’s not the point i was addressing in my comment though, i agree processed foods a very bad. and poorer people are more likely to eat them. there’s no debate there from me.

            i was only addressing your broad generalization of looking at all food doctors recommend for pregnant people to avoid. while it does include lots of bad and unhealthy foods, these recommendations also include foods that are directly related to fetal development, hormone changes, etc

      • Krudler@lemmy.world
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        27 days ago

        The EMF from power lines was a real mind virus that went around when I was a teenager!

        I’ve been alive too long and have seen this pattern play out again, and again, and again. Feeling a little sad right now, actually.

        For another example: all my life the common sense accepted wisdom, supported by real dermatologists was that to keep the likelihood of skin cancer to a minimum there is zero known healthy level of sun exposure. Well that’s all out the f’king window in 2025 because we now know the deleterious effects of insufficient sun exposure are vastly more severe compared to an increased morbidity for types of skin cancer.

        I don’t want to be mr critical, but… there’s something wrong in our whole approach to these “studies” and I don’t know what fixes it. Any experts wanna help describe what I’m getting at with the right technical language?

      • Krudler@lemmy.world
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        27 days ago

        My “maybe?” controversial opinion, shot off half-cocked and a little uninformed… is that the entire field of nutritional epidemiology is bad pseudo-science arising from a fundamentally flawed viewpoint and bias: That health outcomes are tied to nutritional intake vs nutritional intake arising from the conditions of individuals’ lives.

        I’d hate to be a nutritional epidemiologist tbh. I can’t think of a less fruitful career searching for answers and finding what looks like answers, but are just the biases of your questions reflected back to you.

    • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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      27 days ago

      Basically: wanna live healthy and forever? Just become a billionaire! If you don’t want to live healthy then I guess that’s your choice to make.

  • Brkdncr@lemmy.world
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    28 days ago

    It’s also important to note that the studies included in the analysis were observational, meaning that the data can only show an association between eating habits and disease –– not prove that what people ate caused the disease

    • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
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      28 days ago

      While I’m sure they meant a hotdog sized amount per day… yeah, thats terrible wording. When I eat hot dogs I might eat 2 or 3 at a cook out or something… then not eat hotdogs for like 3 months. They could have evoked the “amount” better. And even then… who eats that much ultra processed meat?

        • TheWeirdestCunt@lemmy.today
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          28 days ago

          how is bacon ultra processed meat? bacon is just part of a pig in the same way that loin or rump are. Unless US bacon is just reconstituted corn syrup like most of their stuff seems to be.

              • BorgDrone@feddit.nl
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                28 days ago

                I sure hope not. Sodium nitrite is one of the ‘problematic’ compounds and is used when curing meat, especially to prevent the bacteria that produces botulinum toxin from growing. While nitrites may kill you slowly, botulism can kill you much faster.

                The problem with food that contains the botulism bacteria is that you don’t notice it. It doesn’t look or smell any different. Any meat that wasn’t cured using a specific minimum percentage of sodium nitrite is not to be trusted.

              • Krudler@lemmy.world
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                27 days ago

                The real difference in butcher bacon is that they get the better cut of meat. The cheaper cut goes into the sliced packages for grocery stores.

          • nfh@lemmy.world
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            28 days ago

            the curing process introduces carcinogenic nitrates, which is a similar risk factor, if I understand correctly

    • wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works
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      28 days ago

      I suggest you don’t visit West Virginia…

      Each year, West Virginians consume 481 hot dogs per capita, according to 24/7 Wall St. That means the average West Virginian eats more than one hot dog a day. Illinois locals love their Chicago dog, and they didn’t even come close to West Virginia’s annual hot dog consumption, hitting 317 per capita.

      https://www.tastingtable.com/1887834/west-virginia-most-hot-dogs/

      Coincidentally West Virginia has an obesity rate of 41%.

      • burntbacon@discuss.tchncs.de
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        27 days ago

        I feel like the west virginia statistic may be heavily biased by what a poor family might feed a child. I remember my parents using hot dogs for ‘cheap’ meat that could be doctored into meals that my picky toddler ass would eat.

    • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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      27 days ago

      The hot dog was supposed to be an example. A more common one is lunch meat, which some people do eat every day.

      • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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        27 days ago

        Fair point. My kid eats a lot of turkey sandwiches.

        Anyone know the conversion rate of turkey slices to hotdogs?

        • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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          26 days ago

          Well if you roll up a Turkey slice its about the same size? Hard to say though, it varies by brand and region. Most of this stuff doesnt apply outside the US as much either as food standards tend to be very low in the states.