A study published in the January 2002 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that people who ate diets high in red meat and/or milk had much higher rates of stomach and esophageal cancer than those who did not. Some animal rights groups and activists are trumpeting this as the latest evidence that meat is not good for you. The activists might want to read the fine print since the study actually reinforces common sense advice about a balanced diet as exemplified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s nutrition guidelines — guidelines which have been much derided by animal rights activists and groups.
The study by Honlei Chen examined the dietary patterns of white adult residents of eastern Nebraska. The study included 124 subjects whom had been diagnosed with stomach cancer, 124 who had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer, and 449 healthy controls. Researchers asked the subjects about their eating habits and they were then classified into groups such as “healthy,” “high meat,” “high milk,” etc.
Right off the bat there are a lot of limitations as to how generalizable the results of this study are due to its size and other related issues, but lets ignore those objections. What did the study actually find?
The result that made headlines was that people who ate “high meat” diets had 3.6 times the risk of esophageal cancer and twice the risk of stomach cancer compared to those eating a “healthy” diet, while those who had “high milk” diets had a 2-fold risk of both esophageal and stomach cancers compared to the “healthy” diet group.
The first thing to note is that the “healthy” eating groups were those who followed existing USDA dietary guidelines — they ate about five servings of fruit and vegetables, lots of servings of grains, bread and pasta, and only 2-3 servings of meat daily. These are the same guidelines, of course, which groups like the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine have attacked as dangerous and racist (for their inclusion of milk).
Second, as with similar studies, what the study really seemed to track is not meat eating per se, but rather calorie consumption and lack of fruits and vegetables. The group designated as “healthy” consumed the fewest calories which should not be surprising given that someone who eats a lot of meat and/or drinks a lot of milk is very likely to be consuming a lot of calories (it would have been interesting to know about the weight distribution of the individuals in the various groups).
Similarly, recent studies have suggested that consumption of fruits and vegetables may play a role in reducing cancer risk, so people who consume lots of calories and get those calories mainly from meat without adequate fruits and vegetables may be increasing their risk of cancer due to not eating fruits and vegetables rather than from eating meat.
The upshot is that this is the latest study which simply reaffirms commonsense dietary advice. People need not adopt a strict vegan or vegetarian to reduce their risk of cancer and other diseases, but they do need to eat sensibly, consuming lots of fruits and vegetables and eating meat in moderation.
Source:
New research links meat with cancer. Reuters, December 20, 2001.
Diets high in red meat linked to stomach and esophageal cancers. Press Release, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, December 14, 2001.