Does eating red meat really increase cancer risk?

There have been many studies looking into these supposed links for many years. It's not surprising, therefore, that this new article is a very long one — some 570-odd pages.

And you know, it really doesn't help to sort out the debate at all. If you took any notice and cut out of your diet all the foods we now cannot eat because of 'healthy eating' guidelines, GI lists, vegetarian propaganda and meta-analyses like this one, you would probably starve.

A doctor correspondent of mine writes

"It was interesting that, on the news this evening, all of the 'public' who were asked for their view on this research were of the opinion that there was so much information coming out that they didn't know what to believe and, basically, had started to ignore it. Also, Karl Sikora - a very eminent (and sensible) cancer specialist - basically, very politely, suggested that it was nonsense. So, It would seem that the experts have now come out with so much contradictory nonsense that no-one is listening to them anymore."

He — and Dr Sikora — are right. It really is nonsense. What this analysis does show is that these scientists don't live in the real world. That's a world in which whole populations live on red meat and don't get cancer at all. They don't get ischaemic heart disease or diabetes or a whole range of other chronic degenerative conditions either.

Other research has shown that people with the longest life expectancy are those in the 'overweight' class. That is with a BMI between 25 and 30, whose life-expectancy is statistically 25% greater than those with a 'normal' BMI between 18.5 and 25.[1]

This analysis really should be a warning to us that clinical studies, conducted in controlled — but unnatural — conditions, might not be worth the paper they are written on.

If you talk to the clinicians, they will tell you that epidemiology — that is studying whole populations — doesn't prove anything. But I put more faith in epidemiology that clinical studies if they can't come up with anything better than this.

So who is right? Let's look at some facts from our own real-life civilization:

At the beginning of the 19th century about one person in every 50 got cancer. By the beginning of the 20th century that had roughly doubled to one in 27. By the beginning of this century it had increased dramatically to almost one in two! In fact there were three times as many cancers in 2000 as there were when President Nixon declared 'War on Cancer' in 1971. So, are we eating a lot more red meat now compared to a couple of centuries ago? No: We are eating a lot less!

Reference

Flegal KM, Graubard BI, Williamson DF, Gail MH. Excess deaths associated with underweight, overweight, and obesity. JAMA 2005; 293: 1861-1867.