Thursday, March 11, 2021

Eating meat ‘raises risk of heart disease, diabetes and pneumonia’

 UK researchers find link between regular meat intake and nine non-cancerous illnesses


The academics from Oxford University who published the study found that consumption of red meat, processed meat and poultry meat such as chicken and turkey, either alone or together, at least three times a week was linked to a greater risk of nine different illnesses.

Their results add to the growing evidence from researchers and the World Health Organization that eating too much meat, especially red and processed meat, can damage health.


The Guardian 


4 comments:

Ahmed Fares said...

Not eating meat means you can live long enough to die of Alzheimer's and dementia. That's so much better. That's assuming you don't go blind first.

Also, what do people have against pneumonia?

Doctors once had little choice but to be fatalistic about deaths from pneumonia. Sir William Osler, sometimes called the father of modern medicine, famously called it "friend of the aged" (often rendered as "the old man's friend") because it was seen as a swift, relatively painless way to die.

If pneumonia is the “old man's friend”, should it be prevented by vaccination? An ethical analysis

Because pneumococcal disease is a major problem among the elderly, pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccination is widely promoted. However, Sir William Osler called pneumonia the friend of the aged, leading to an ethical discussion. Mortality from pneumonia is higher with increasing degrees of underlying illness, outweighing the age effect. Although some symptoms are less common in the elderly, other symptoms are not and the duration may be longer. Problematic criteria for limiting pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccination include age, social value, and quality of life. Recommended criteria for limiting vaccination include autonomous patient refusal, imminent death, and lack of medical benefit, as would be seen in hospice cases.

Ahmed Fares said...

re: consumptive chic

By the mid-1800s, tuberculosis had reached epidemic levels in Europe and the United States. The disease, now known to be infectious, attacks the lungs and damages other organs. Before the advent of antibiotics, its victims slowly wasted away, becoming pale and thin before finally dying of what was then known as consumption.

The Victorians romanticized the disease and the effects it caused in the gradual build to death. For decades, many beauty standards emulated or highlighted these effects. And as scientists gained greater understanding of the disease and how it was spread, the disease continued to keep its hold on fashion.

“Between 1780 and 1850, there is an increasing aestheticization of tuberculosis that becomes entwined with feminine beauty,” says Carolyn Day, an assistant professor of history at Furman University in South Carolina and author of the forthcoming book Consumptive Chic: A History of Fashion, Beauty and Disease, which explores how tuberculosis impacted early 19th century British fashion and perceptions of beauty.

During that time, consumption was thought to be caused by hereditary susceptibility and miasmas, or “bad airs,” in the environment. Among the upper class, one of the ways people judged a woman’s predisposition to tuberculosis was by her attractiveness, Days says. “That’s because tuberculosis enhances those things that are already established as beautiful in women,” she explains, such as the thinness and pale skin that result from weight loss and the lack of appetite caused by the disease.

The 1909 book Tuberculosis: A Treatise by American Authors on Its Etiology, Pathology, Frequency, Semeiology, Diagnosis, Prognosis, Prevention, and Treatment confirms this notion, with the authors noting: “A considerable number of patients have, and have had for years previous to their sickness, a delicate, transparent skin, as well as fine, silky hair.” Sparkling or dilated eyes, rosy cheeks and red lips were also common in tuberculosis patients—characteristics now known to be caused by frequent low-grade fever.

“We also begin to see elements in fashion that either highlight symptoms of the disease or physically emulate the illness,” Day says. The height of this so-called consumptive chic came in the mid-1800s, when fashionable pointed corsets showed off low, waifish waists and voluminous skirts further emphasized women’s narrow middles. Middle- and upper-class women also attempted to emulate the consumptive appearance by using makeup to lighten their skin, redden their lips and color their cheeks pink.


Tuberculosis. What's not to like?

Peter Pan said...

Dietary advice, and dietary "science", are a joke. To each their own.

If you're able to avoid scurvy, pellegra, and other deficiency syndromes, you're on the right track. If you practice a daily exercise regime, you're on a better track.

p.s. Don't eat bear liver - too much vitamin A.
p.p.s. Don't contract tuberculosis - being unattractive is healthier.

Marian Ruccius said...

The benefits are extraordinarily small -"If there are health benefits from eating less beef and pork, they are small, the researchers concluded. Indeed, the advantages are so faint that they can be discerned only when looking at large populations, the scientists said, and are not sufficient to tell individuals to change their meat-eating habits."

This is from "Eat Less Red Meat, Scientists Said. Now Some Believe That Was Bad Advice."

The evidence is too weak to justify telling individuals to eat less beef and pork, according to new research. The findings “erode public trust,” critics said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/30/health/red-meat-heart-cancer.html