Red Meat Not Linked to Dementia - Headlines Swiftly Debunked (60 sec read)

Headlines have been running “New Study Links Red Meat Consumption to Increased Dementia Risk.” Let’s debunk it in just 200 words...

Headlines have been running “New Study Links Red Meat Consumption to Increased Dementia Risk,” following on a study published last week in Neurology.

Let’s debunk it in 1 minutes and just 200 words.

1. Problematic Food Lumping: There was a lot of ‘food lumping’ on the food frequency questionnaire. In the unprocessed meat category sandwiches and mixed dishes (e.g. lasagna) were lumped with steak and lamb.

2. There was tremendous healthy user bias.

Quoting, “…participants who consumed more red meat had a higher prevalence of current smoking, hypertension, and diabetes and lower levels of dietary quality, education level, [socioeconomic status], physical activity…”

3. “[U]nprocessed red meat intake was not significantly associated with any measure of objective cognitive function.” This is particularly notable in the context of the healthy user bias since the mechanisms they describe for ‘why’ red meat may harm the brain are mostly not specific to processed red meat and include factors like TMAO and saturated fat intake.

4. This is further notable because when you start to unpack the attempt at biological plausibility, the arguments implicitly implode. For example, the discussion reads, “diets rich in saturated fats can reduce brain derived neurotrophic factor…” but if you look at the referenced study (ref 34) the diet is literally called a “high fat sucrose diet.”

In summary, this study is, bologna.

Feedback

This ‘quick read’ differs from my usual style. Let me know if you like it, or if you don’t. I want to provide you with high value density.

Carnivore Curious?

If you’re wondering why there are so many meaty headlines, it may have to do with the rise in popularity of the carnivore diet.

I’m not ‘for’ or ‘against’ the carnivore diet, per se. Context and nuance are essential. However, I do feel it’s misunderstood and that red meat and animal-based foods often get (unfairly) scapegoated and thrown under the Big Food bus. To that end, I’ve started a YouTube playlist covering topics related to animal-based diet. I hope you find it provocatively reasonable.

Click HERE for playlist.