> Even under the anthropological point of view, red meat which has sustained humanity for hundred of thousands of years, to "cause cancer" smells like biased nonsense from a mile away
How is this line of argument any better than biased studies?
Humans smoked tobacco for thousands of years too, or are you going to argue that smoking doesn't cause cancer either?
Also, humans used to walk dozens of miles a day. Humans used to not be 40% obese. Humans used to never eat refined sugar.
Lots of things have changed. And even if red meat didn't cause cancer in prehistory, cattle and pigs are raised differently now, and human dietary and mobility patterns are completely different today than even 100 years ago.
None of this is strong evidence for anything.
Trying to determine truth in metabolic science is super hard, and yes there are studies that point in all directions on basically any intervention. So people are understandably very wary of "well, let's toss all that out and start from some other first principles that happen to support my preexisting beliefs" like the "anthropological point of view" you describe.
Not all studies are equally bad, but basically all arguments about historical nutrition have so many confounds that they tell us very little about cause and effect, and a lot about priors (or "bias" as you refer to it elsewhere).
How is this line of argument any better than biased studies?
Humans smoked tobacco for thousands of years too, or are you going to argue that smoking doesn't cause cancer either?
Also, humans used to walk dozens of miles a day. Humans used to not be 40% obese. Humans used to never eat refined sugar.
Lots of things have changed. And even if red meat didn't cause cancer in prehistory, cattle and pigs are raised differently now, and human dietary and mobility patterns are completely different today than even 100 years ago.
None of this is strong evidence for anything.
Trying to determine truth in metabolic science is super hard, and yes there are studies that point in all directions on basically any intervention. So people are understandably very wary of "well, let's toss all that out and start from some other first principles that happen to support my preexisting beliefs" like the "anthropological point of view" you describe.
Not all studies are equally bad, but basically all arguments about historical nutrition have so many confounds that they tell us very little about cause and effect, and a lot about priors (or "bias" as you refer to it elsewhere).