It seems to me most strange that men should fear, seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come. – William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar (II, ii)
Just recently, we were once again subjected to the silly spectacle of grown men sonorously pronouncing that yet another of life’s simple pleasures leads to an “increased risk” of cancer…the implication being that one ought to avoid the stuff as though it were poison. Dr. Brooke Magnanti (whose judgment I trust much more than I would that of the WHO) assures me that the risk is small indeed:
A far smaller percentage of people who eat processed meat regularly will get cancer from it compared to the percentage who get cancer that smoke regularly…If it had been better reported, the news should not have alarmed people any more than knowing that sun exposure, hormone therapy of any kind including the Pill, wild garlic, alcohol, and salted fish also definitely cause cancer, in sufficient doses…
Since I’ve been on oral estrogen for over 20 years and don’t actually eat that much bacon or sausage, I have absolutely no plans to make any changes in my diet whatsoever, any more than I would due to any other nutritional proclamation by “experts” (which is to say somewhere between zero and not at all). While I can think of many good reasons to alter one’s behavior, a slightly elevated risk of dying from one cause rather than another is not among them. Colorectal cancer is probably not a particularly pleasant way to go, but guess what? Most of the other possible routes aren’t any better, and some are much worse. As I wrote in “The Day of the Dead“,
…death is the one inescapable experience of material existence. You will die, and so will I, and there is absolutely nothing any of us can do about it…yet vast numbers are so obsessed with this simple and indisputable fact that they waste much of their time on Earth in a struggle they absolutely cannot win. In a pathetic attempt to stretch their allotted quantity of days just a little further, many are willing to dramatically reduce the quality of the whole…
If you really believe that it’s worth turning every meal into an ordeal (or at least a math problem) for the rest of your life in order to buy a ticket for a raffle whose prize is an extra year or two of senility and decrepitude at the end, be my guest; it’s your life and you are free to waste it as you like. But please don’t expect me to join you; I’ve got better things to do with my time here on this plane than to spend it fleeing death. Once a year on this day, I drink a toast to the Reaper and remind him that I’m not afraid of him; when he at last come to collect me it will be a rendezvous rather than a capture, a meeting (whether anticipated or unexpected) of old friends rather than the cornering of a terrified animal by a hunter who has never in the history of the world ever failed to run down his prey.
I so love the last paragraph. An old friend is so into diet and eating right for her blood type and everything else and can be such a tyrant about it. I gave up long ago trying to buy that “…ticket for raffle whose prize is a extra year or two of…decrepitude.”
And I always forget.
Posts like these are so refreshing. Thanks, Maggie. Good life to you.
He is not my friend and I will fight the motherfucker and I will kill him.
I also will fight him. But not with the kind of petty gestures the diet-fascists demand. What good is life if you don’t dare enjoy it?
Jeez jd, you must live a pretty tinfoil hat sort of life if you think the release of health data by the WHO is ‘diet fascists’ ‘demanding’ something of you.
Dr Magnanti did not say the risk was “small indeed”. She merely pointed out it was much smaller than that of smoking – which happens to be the single greatest cause of fatal cancer deaths in the world, far outstripping asbestos exposure or possessing both the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes.
Red and processed meat consumption is strongly linked to 1.5-2.0% of all deaths in developed countries which makes it a relatively high cause of mortality – several times the deaths attributable to motor vehicle accidents or drug overdose for example. Survivors often suffer long term reduction in quality of life – due to losing large sections of their bowels and the side effects of chemo- and radiotherapy.
The thrust of Dr Magnanti’s comment was in fact a refutation of the doubt you expressed about the WHO report – especially in the context of your link back to your earlier post in which you approvingly referred to the fraudulent claims posted on JunkScience.com. As she pointed out, the evidence that red and processed meat is a human carcinogen is very strong indeed, which is why it has taken its place on the list of 116 class one carcinogens on the WHO notification list. In fact she questioned why it had taken so long. And of course Dr Magnanti bases her opinion on much of the same research the WHO relies on; which is why they are so closely aligned.
Naturally the media reported it irresponsibly. They always will, no matter how carefully it’s publicised (though some pundits – such as Stephen Milloy at FoxNews and Junkscience.com will report it far more irresponsibly and deceitfully than others). Nonetheless the fact that sufficient evidence has now accumulated to put those meats on WHO’s list of class 1 carcinogens is very relevant information, not only for those interested in reducing their risk of bowel cancer by over 60% (much more than you get by eating lots of dietary fibre) but even more so to practitioners and health officials who wish to practice evidence-based medicine, give patients accurate health advice and/or reduce the cost of bowel cancer to the health system.
Unless you’re prone to misreading the WHO report and panicking or have shares in processed meat companies I have no idea what your objection to the WHO report is. No-one is asking you or anyone else to give up your bacon burgers (I sure won’t be cutting red meat out of my diet). However if you want to reduce the chance you’ll someday die of bowel cancer or spend the rest of your life lugging a colostomy bag you now have sufficient information to cut that risk by about two thirds.
With all this discussion about processed meat, it begs a question. In a nutshell, what do people here think of vegans? I recently discovered a former co-worker is quite a hardcore vegan, not just for the claimed health benefits, but because meat consumption is apparently more polluting than any fossil fuel you could name, Yet, activists are regularly far more up in arms (and in the news) about what Exxon is doing versus Tyson chicken or Oscar Mayer.
Veganism is founded on the absurd premise that plants are not living things. Privileging animals above plants is an artificial distinction unless one only eschews eating one type of animal (say, mammals), which hardcore vegans don’t.
I’ve got a fair amount of respect for vegans inasmuch as they aren’t supporting industrialised meat production, which involves a lot of pollution and appalling treatment of animals.
I’m a bit surprised that so soon after her post on how ‘death must come to all’ Maggie’s suddenly come over all ‘life is sacred’ with respect to plants while apparently seeing fit to ignore quality of life. Obviously I can’t really put myself in the place of a battery hen, but I can’t help thinking it suffers a fair bit more than does a cabbage (which I know Maggie would never eat).
But veganism ain’t for me. I like meat and would find it expensive and inconvenient to get proper nutrition as a vegan. I also recognise that to live is to kill and the clothes I wear, appliances I own, the power I use and, yes, even the plants I eat also contribute to the death and suffering of animals, including species extinction.
I think the best approach is to try to always be as aware as possible of the impact you have on other beings – though I would definitely prioritise animals over plants – and do your best to reduce it where you can while recognising that death is the only thing that will ultimately free you of the need to harm others.
You’ve got it backward; I’m saying eating animals is not different from eating plants, not that either one is “sacred”.
Well, generally you have to kill animals to eat them. For many plants that’s not the case. Fruit (which includes a lot of things we usually call vegetables) has evolved to be eaten. It’s part of its reproductive cycle (I wonder if having a peach picked is like an orgasm to the tree). Most grain crops are already dead or dying at harvest time, though I guess the pro-lifers would insist that every seed is sacred.
So even without getting into speculation about what their lack of a nervous system might mean in terms of subjective suffering I think you’re drawing a very long bow in equating the eating of plants with that of animals.
Which isn’t to say industrial plant agriculture doesn’t cause massive amounts of animal death and suffering along with pollution and other environmental damage.
As I said before, the number of deaths it causes is irrelevant (unless it is the manner of death you fear, not the time). What is relevant is how much remaining life-expectancy is lost and what the relative quality of life would have been for that time lost.
As the median age of diagnosis for colorectal cancer is 69 (in the US), ignoring this and concentrating on the percentage of deaths from it gives a completely corrupted view of what is going on.
Lies, damned lies and statistics…
I know this might come as a surprise to you Celos, but you are not The Grand Arbiter of what use is to be made of data.
It’s just as valid for someone to wish to avoid getting colorectal cancer in their 80s as it is in their 30s, regardless of your opinion on the matter. It’s also perfectly valid for doctors to want to be able to rely on the sort of solid research data provided by WHO to inform patients who may be at particular risk of colorectal cancer regardless of their age (e.g. those with a family history of it or who have already had polyps or tumours removed). It’s also more than reasonable for insurance companies and public health officials to use this data in the hope of reducing their exposure to the expense of colorectal cancer in others. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I doubt it’s much cheaper to treat a 90 year old for cancer than it is a 30 year old.
Or would you propose triaging out those over 69 and not treating them at all because, you know, they’ve already had a long enough life?
Perhaps statistics wouldn’t ‘lie’ to you so much if you learned the language.
You seem to be really confused as to the facts and what they imply. Stop posturing and insulting others without good reasons and admit you are wrong.
Incidentally, I have an academic background in statistics, but you seems to be sadly lacking in that department and you are obviously unaware of that.
Yes Celos, you have already told us you’re a super-scientist with expertise in absolutely everything. You talk the talk. Endlessly. However, strangely enough, when you actually tried to demonstrate your alleged statistical competence you made a very basic error, giving a result that was off by more than 100%.
But since you seem to be fishing, I’ll come clean to you.
I too have Masters level qualifications in fields heavy in statistical analysis. I also have papers published on forensic population genetics (which is basically a statistical field) as well as several years of university lecturing and presentations at conferences on the subject. However, like you, my main professional career has been in IT (contract analysis and programming) where I’ve co-developed systems involving statistical analysis in fields including epidemiology, insurance actuarials and financial analysis.
But all of that is neither here nor there. Other than your practical demonstrations of statistical incompetence most of our exchanges have been largely rhetorical, during which you have made dogmatic and arrogant claims such as “What is relevant is how much remaining life-expectancy is lost and what the relative quality of life would have been for that time lost”. In other words, claims that have nothing at all to do with tertiary qualifications in statistics or objective fact but rather are an attempt to assert your personal values and world view by pretending they’re ‘science’ – a theme that has been pretty consistent in your comments whether directed towards me or not.
Seriously? You still have not noticed that your number is not closely related to the topic at hand? When discussing loss of life expectancy due to a certain behavior, don’t you think the number discussed should be the actual loss of life expectancy and not some other number that is not closely related, like how many people die from that specific cause?
Now, if the situation was “50% die never, 49% die from other causes, and 1% dies from eating too much processed meat” and if you would avoid dying completely if you are in that 1% but then stop eating red meat, then that number would have direct meaning for the discussion. But that is not the situation.
So what I did was countering a very rough estimate with basically unbounded error with another very rough estimate, also with unbounded error. Or in non-expert language, I gave another bullshit number in response to one bullshit number. This does not at all mean I have misunderstood anything here.
Well you certainly responded with bullshit. And just did so again.
In responding to me posting a link indicating red and processed meat is responsible for 3% of all cancers you said:
Oh, we are making up numbers? I can do that too: Apparently, the risk of dying from cancer is around 25% of the total deaths. 3% of 25% is 0.75%.
Obviously you thought you could multiply the proportion of cancers caused by the meats by the overall risk of death by cancer and arrive at the risk of dying of cancer by eating those meats.
In other words, you may have been taught something about mathematics but are clearly clueless as to how to apply it.
Tell yourself that if you need to.
I do know that this approach does not lead to good numbers. That may be why I wrote “Oh, we are making up numbers?” I thought it was a pretty strong hint about the quality of the numbers, but apparently not strong enough for you.
Feel free to continue insulting my education and insights, I will stop listening now.
So if you just make up the numbers exactly what is the relevance of your supposed education in statistics Celos?
That’s presumably what you mean with your gobbledegook about a “very rough estimate, also with unbounded error”. It’s not that your error is unbounded Celos – though that seems quite an appropriate way of characterising you – but that your methodology was completely incorrect.
It’s clear that you made a very basic error. One that either reveals that you have little comprehension of how to combine data or that you have a bottle of something strong opened next to you when you make comments.
Now you are either still incapable of understanding the basic concepts well enough to recognise your error and admit it graciously or you are lying through your teeth in an attempt to cover it up.
I have no opinion either way, but it’s clear that whatever you say regarding the analysis of numerical data can be given very little credence.
A clarification of my first para.
While the number of cancer deaths attributable to BRCA1 + BRCA2 is much lower than that attributable to eating red + processed meat that’s because far fewer people have both those genes than eat those meats. If you do have both those genes (and you’re a woman) the risk of developing cancer as a result is better than 60% and the risk of dying of it almost 15%.
Of course if you’re from a family with a strong history of bowel cancer your added risk of dying of cancer from eating r + p meats is also higher.
I had a great-aunt who lived to almost 90. I remember being much younger and visiting her (she was already very old) and learning about all her various dietary restrictions – she couldn’t have salt, she couldn’t have sugar, she couldn’t have processed meat, she couldn’t have caffeine or alcohol, she couldn’t have white bread… Maybe adhering to all those restrictions did keep her alive a few years longer, but she spent those years in hospitals and assisted living centers, constantly sick and practically bedbound. She was sharp as a tack right up to the end, but trapped in a body that was all but useless.
Of course I’m all for health and fitness. I love my body, and want it to stay healthy and strong for as long as possible. But at some point that will no longer be possible. And I wonder sometimes, if my great-aunt could do it all over again, if she would have traded one or two of those last years for the occasional soda, or a sprinkling of salt on her meals, or a few more rashers of bacon.
Well said, Maggie. I am with you.
Yes, those are the nursing home years. While life expectancy has increased, the age at which we become decrepit has not kept pace. I am reminded of a proverb I heard once, “Why live like a pauper to die a healthy man?”
I agree with cabrogal on this topic. Knowledge is always good. Moralists don’t need actual science to impose regulations on something. Governments often disregard scientific knowledge anyway when they have a moral agenda. It’s important to know what are the actual risks associated with anything, whether it’s sunlight, cigarette, food or sex.
If you live long enough, chances are high that you will get some form of cancer at some point. The goal of prevention is to delay that as much as possible. Some people have increased odds because of genetics and it’s especially important for those.
Personnally, I’m not afraid of dying (it’s just too hard to imagine). I’m much more worried about a long painful agony with expensive and unpleasant treatments. Death is not the worst in my book.
http://thegg.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/terry-pratchett-and-death.jpg
I just wanted to put a link to a picture, but it came out like this. Don’t know if that’s ok, and sorry about that if not.
Yeah, a funny little trick WordPress has played, eh? Automatically replacing picture and youtube URLs with the element they link to.
I only learned about it when krulac came a cropper exactly the same way you did. Mind you, though I’m a big Pratchett fan I think his pic of Mistress Matisse trumps yours.
One of the nicest things about my life in Seattle is being able to gaze on Matisse’s loveliness close-up and on a regular basis, usually in one or the other of our living rooms.
Oh you stop that Maggie!
No fair inducing sexual frustration on the other side of the planet.
Today I saw a girl wearing a t-shirt that made me think of you Maggie.
It said:
“The good things in life are free.
I’m one of the bad things”.
Thought of you Maggie – http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ap-hundreds-of-officers-lose-licenses-over-sex-misconduct/
A more perfect first-world problem than “excessive red meat increases your risk of cancer” would be difficult to find.
Why do so many people in the developed world die of cancer, heart disease, and obesity? Because everyone must die, and in the developed world we don’t die of so many other things.