Red Meat and Longevity

The Calgary Herald published an article on a study the showed that eating red meat in increase your risk of dying, dying earlier than not eating or eat less red meat. In an article entitled Live longer by reducing red meat intake: Study, Sharon Kirkey reported that those who eat an average of 1 3/4 lb per week of red meat have a high change of dying from heart disease or cancer than those who consume only 1/2 lb of red meat per week. Canadian Cancer Society, which led the study, would lower its recommended amount of red meat to 18 oz per week.

The study, which was published in Archives of Internal Medicine entitled Meat Intake and Mortality, was done on 322,263 men and 223,390 women aged between 50 to 71 lived in 1995. 10 years later, a follow up study was done in 2005 and found that about 48,000 men and 23,000 women have died.

Men with high red meat intake has a 31% higher risk of death as compared to those with low red meat intake. Women, however, have 36% higher risk of death. All these findings are with family history, smoking, body mass and other risk factors worked in. WOW! That's 11% deaths in men and 16% deaths in women that are attributed to high red meat intake.

Let me try to put in a graph format:


Remember these percentages are the comparison of those with high red meat intake (1 3/4 lb per week) and with those with low red meat intake (1/2 lb per week).

The study also did a comparison on processed meat and its affect on death. I will go straight to the graph.

Before I go on, the term "Red Meat" and "Processed Meat" should be clearly defined.

Red Meat: bacon, beef, cold cuts, ham, hamburger, hot dogs, liver, pork, sausage, steak and meats in foods.

Processed Meat: bacon, red meat sausage, cold cuts, ham and regular hot dogs.

Ok, here's the last type of meat: white meat.

White Meat: chicken, turkey, fish, poultry cold cuts, canned tuna, low-fat sausages and poultry hot dogs.

Back to the study. Here's the interesting part of the study. The quantity of intake of white meat has "an inverse association for total mortality and cancer mortality as well as all other deaths for both men and women." Though no exact risk percentage were given, it seems like it is saying that the more white meat we eat, the healthier we are?

On a side note, there are a lot of studies Archives of Internal Medicine with red meat.

1. A study on Red Meat Intake and Risk of Breast Cancer Among Premenopausal Women concluded that higher red meat intake may be a risk factor for ER+/PR+ breast cancer among premenopausal women.
2. A study led by Dr Teresa T. Fung on Dietary Patterns, Meat Intake and the Risk of Type 2 Diabetes in Women concluded that a diet high in processed meats may increase the risk of type 2 diabetes in women.
3. A study comparing the lipid-lowering effect of lean meat diets and that of vegetarian diets concluded that lean meat diet virtually have no lipid-lowering effect at all.
4. Dr Teresa T. Fung also did a study entitled Adherence to a Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH)-Style Diet and Risk of Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) and Stroke in Women concluded that DASH-Style Diet does lower the risk of CHD and stroke among middle-aged women during 24 years of follow-up.
5. Another Dr Teresa T. Fung study showed there is a significant positive association between the Western dietary (high intake of red and processed meats, sweets, and desserts, french fries and refined grains) and the risk of colon cancer.

I think there are more studies and they all conclude that high meat intake is dangerous.

Adventist Lifestyle and Longevity

I stumbled upon a study on what affect of being a Seventh-day Adventist have on a person.

1. Children born into an Adventist family tends to be 99g heavier than general public.
2. Total cholesterol is 0.86 mmol/L lower among Adventist men as compared to men in general.
3. Death due to cardiovascular is much lower among Adventist.
4. Deaths due to cancer is not much different than the non-Adventists. These could be that the Norwegean have lower cancer rate compared to the rest of the world.
5. Entering the Church at an early age contributes in reducing death due to diseases

I find this is so amazing that being born into Adventist family gives you a head start on longevity. Stay with the faith.

Source:The healthy Seventh-day Adventist Lifestyle: what is the Norwegian experience?

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Bullying in Schools

The Medirian Star published an article entitled "Childhood, school bullying focus of today's workshop". The program is being promoted by Sandra Vaughn.

Bullying is a problem in public school and it is a breath of fresh air that an Adventist Church is putting up the program. I would like to think that such a topic is not a problem in Adventist Schools, but then I may be like an ostrich buried my head in the sand.

It is not only there are boys bullies, there are also girls bullies. It the article states that girls bullies may not use the same tactics to bully but they are bullies none the same.

Vegetarianism

Broadway World published an article Pianist David Phillips Plays Classic Works During 'Rites Of Spring' Series 4/25 and a light vegan faire to follow. The Jackson Sun also published an article Local church launches vegetarian supper club.

Vegetarianism has always been promoted within Adventist circle. Most Adventist institutions do not serve meat within the institution or during official functions. Though many are vegetarian but many more are not. And Adventist themselves are looking for new ways to encourage vegetarianism.

Vegetarian is one of the core message in the Adventist Lifestyle and we need to share not only to others but also to our children. The diseases of the world has no respect whether we are Adventist or not but what we eat will determine whether we suffer the diseases of the world or not. What we feed our children will determine whether they live longer or not.

Adventist Lifestyle

Recently, Forbes.com published an article on How to Live to 100. Robert Langreth made reference on National Geographic articles a couple of years ago of how Adventist life longer than the general American public.

There seems to be some kind of studies done on the lifestyle of the Adventist every decades and I've heard of research going back to the 1950's. Haven't all the angles of the Adventist lifestyle been research enough already?

Generally, Adventist Lifestyle mean

1. Clean mean (though vegetarianism is encouraged)
2. No smoking
3. No drinking
4. Exercise, Water, Fresh Air (not as doctrinal as the first 3)

There have been many researches, medical journal articles and web pages telling us that vegetarianism is good for us, smoking and alcohol is bad for us and exercise is good. Yet with all these articles, how has it change the world?

It is still stock the world that some of the lifestyle diseases are caused by what we eat. Diseases like hypertension, diabetes, cancer, etc can be attributed to what we eat. All thing being equal, if we eat right, don't smoke, don't drink and exercise will, we could have avoided most of the diseases in the world. OK, maybe if not avoided, it would reduce our change of getting to a lesser degree.

The same sentiment is also reflected in an article in Manila Bulletin entitled Living to 100 by DR. Jose S. Pujalte, Jr.