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[-] Krudler@lemmy.world 64 points 4 days ago

I'm not a nutritional epidemiologist.

But I've started to get into learning about it in the last few months.

It's really starting to feel like this is a giant bullshit field, and as much as they are trying to find useful results, there's something severely wrong with how they seem to arbitrarily assign causality and correlation.

In a contrived example: "People who live near power lines have more cancer" - "No, poor people live near power lines because they're poor, and poor people have more cancer"

What are the kind of people that eat processed hot dogs? I can promise you they are not millionaires. I can promise you it's not people who can afford filet mignon but decide to have a steamed hot dog. It's not people who work out and take care of their bodies. It's not people who cook.

So when a study is done like this, what answer are you actually getting? probably finding out that the type of people who eat processed meat are more prone to these conditions for a variety of considerations that are just totally left out of the analysis.

[-] whoisearth@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 days ago

We have collectively forgotten that correlation != causation

[-] Krudler@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

I actually don't think it's possible to forget. In the sense that pattern recognition and chain-of-event are thought structures baked into our very beings. We don't intuit that most things are random in a greater sense, and probabilistic on a finer resolution. We're always looking for self-satisfying, singular paths of causality and they don't exist.

Touch red hot metal burn skin; Stab self in face make self not alive. A necessary abbreviated thought structure essential to human survival.

Extend that perspective to eat ween get beetus. Wait.

What is the field of nutritional epidemiology hoping to accomplish by obsessively searching for links (their magic word) between disease and dietary intake? It assumes, by the very nature of the question, that there is a direct causal relationship between diet & illness. There can't be. Any sufficiently complicated system of interrelationships is going to have massive amounts of turbulence and chaos!

[-] swelter_spark@reddthat.com 10 points 3 days ago

Well, you're right and I'm surprised I've never thought of this before.

[-] Krudler@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

The EMF from power lines was a real mind virus that went around when I was a teenager!

I've been alive too long and have seen this pattern play out again, and again, and again. Feeling a little sad right now, actually.

For another example: all my life the common sense accepted wisdom, supported by real dermatologists was that to keep the likelihood of skin cancer to a minimum there is zero known healthy level of sun exposure. Well that's all out the f'king window in 2025 because we now know the deleterious effects of insufficient sun exposure are vastly more severe compared to an increased morbidity for types of skin cancer.

I don't want to be mr critical, but... there's something wrong in our whole approach to these "studies" and I don't know what fixes it. Any experts wanna help describe what I'm getting at with the right technical language?

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[-] RickyRigatoni@retrolemmy.com 11 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

publishing this article three days before independance day is terrorism

edit: two days. Somehow I thought the fourth of july was on the fifth.

[-] pyre@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

i usually use a little mnemonic device to remember exact dates for holidays. for fourth of July i try to match the last word with the month of the year and the first word with the day of the month.

[-] AbidanYre@lemmy.world 152 points 4 days ago

as little as one hot dog a day

That still seems like a lot to me.

[-] SnotFlickerman 63 points 4 days ago

A hot dog a day keeps the doctors employed.

[-] wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works 51 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I suggest you don't visit West Virginia....

Each year, West Virginians consume 481 hot dogs per capita, according to 24/7 Wall St. That means the average West Virginian eats more than one hot dog a day. Illinois locals love their Chicago dog, and they didn't even come close to West Virginia's annual hot dog consumption, hitting 317 per capita.

https://www.tastingtable.com/1887834/west-virginia-most-hot-dogs/

Coincidentally West Virginia has an obesity rate of 41%.

[-] burntbacon@discuss.tchncs.de 14 points 4 days ago

I feel like the west virginia statistic may be heavily biased by what a poor family might feed a child. I remember my parents using hot dogs for 'cheap' meat that could be doctored into meals that my picky toddler ass would eat.

[-] wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works 7 points 4 days ago

West Virginia is what,the third poorest state in GDP per capita? The average there is poor, so yeah.

[-] Saik0Shinigami@lemmy.saik0.com 36 points 4 days ago

While I'm sure they meant a hotdog sized amount per day... yeah, thats terrible wording. When I eat hot dogs I might eat 2 or 3 at a cook out or something... then not eat hotdogs for like 3 months. They could have evoked the "amount" better. And even then... who eats that much ultra processed meat?

[-] auraithx@piefed.social 25 points 4 days ago

Think that’s about the average.

Deli meats, pizza toppings, bacon, etc.

[-] TheWeirdestCunt@lemmy.today 15 points 4 days ago

how is bacon ultra processed meat? bacon is just part of a pig in the same way that loin or rump are. Unless US bacon is just reconstituted corn syrup like most of their stuff seems to be.

[-] nickhammes@lemmy.world 32 points 4 days ago

the curing process introduces carcinogenic nitrates, which is a similar risk factor, if I understand correctly

[-] auraithx@piefed.social 21 points 4 days ago

All bacon worldwide is processed meat because it’s treated to preserve shelf life.

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[-] Brkdncr@lemmy.world 123 points 4 days ago

It’s also important to note that the studies included in the analysis were observational, meaning that the data can only show an association between eating habits and disease –– not prove that what people ate caused the disease

[-] logicbomb@lemmy.world 39 points 4 days ago

I think that if you know a person who eats a hot dog every day, you will have many other reasons to suspect that they're unhealthy.

right. that's just about any food study! it's the trouble with the nutrition field in general

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[-] salacious_coaster@infosec.pub 93 points 4 days ago

Everyone who has ever eaten a hot dog will die

[-] AmazingAwesomator@lemmy.world 39 points 4 days ago

studies show that 100% of people who drink water will also die.

[-] socsa@piefed.social 23 points 4 days ago

I don't have a problem. I can stop drinking water whenever I want to.

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[-] dodgeflailimpose@lemmy.zip 21 points 3 days ago

sorry but one hotdog a day is not a small nor moderate amount.

[-] skisnow@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 days ago

What I liked was their phrasing: "people who ate as little as one hot dog a day"

I'm assuming it's just the average though, I generally ingest my 7 hotdogs for Monday morning breakfast, and then eat healthy the rest of the week.

[-] EtAl_isGitch@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

One hotdog a day is little compared to the 30+ hot dogs day they are force feeding those poor albino rats.

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[-] tacosplease@lemmy.world 13 points 3 days ago

Jokes on them. I do tons of unsafe shit, and probably only one of those things is going to kill me. There will be no accountability for 99.9% of the bad behavior, including unregulated hotdog intake. Suckers.

[-] CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social 53 points 4 days ago

"As little as one hot dog a day", doesn't really strike me as a great example of a "small" amount of processed meat. I'd generally say I ate a lot of something if I had it literally on a daily basis.

[-] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 11 points 4 days ago

Totally agree on hotdogs, but if someone ate a slice of standard toast for breakfast every day I wouldn't say they ate a lot of toast.
Point being, I don't think the frequency can be considered independent of the thing.

They maybe could have phrased it better as "consumption of as little as 2 ounces of processed meat, about one hotdog, a day...".
A hotdog is a relatable unit of measure for an amount of food, but a hotdog a day isn't normal. A hotdog one day, a deli sandwich the next, and so one though isn't preposterous.

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[-] LordCrom@lemmy.world 8 points 3 days ago

Ya well in the 70s and 80s this was what we as kids were given to eat.

I'm paying for that now

[-] Colonel_Panic_@eviltoast.org 2 points 2 days ago

I could sure go for some Ivermectin squeezed on top of a hotdog and washed down with some motor oil about now.

[-] hperrin@lemmy.ca 20 points 4 days ago

Considering humans have been eating processed meats like these for centuries, I think I’ll take my chances.

[-] madlian@lemmy.cafe 9 points 4 days ago

Yeah, I try not to make it my entire diet, but… no pepperoni? Why live?

[-] chunes@lemmy.world 19 points 4 days ago

7% increase of an already small chance in exchange for 1 hotdog/day doesn't sound that bad to me.

[-] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 20 points 4 days ago

It never seems that bad unless you're in that small percent. Cancer's a damned awful way to die.

[-] kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world 35 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Sure but there are a ton of things, genetic, environmental, dietary, neurochemical, etc. that can contribute to the development of cancer. You can do literally everything right and end up in the exact same place as someone who did all the wrong things because the causes are innumerable and many are literally unavoidable.

Would I regret my choices if I got cancer after I did all the things the studies say would increase my odds? Of course I would. Would I regret my choices if did everything "right" and still got cancer? Of course I would. But that's because being in that position inherently biased you against your past. If I did all the wrong things I would regret that I indulged too much, and if I did all the right things I would regret that I never really indulged at all and enjoyed life fully. Either way you got shafted. You're damned if you do, damned if you don't.

But to me it's better to just live intentionally but without having this constant concern about every single thing I eat, drink, or breath maybe, possibly, eventually contributing to developing cancer. Like I'm not about to start smoking, I rarely drink, I try to eat enough veggies, etc. because those things have much more tangible direct consequences that I'm mindful of, and I'm not about to eat a hotdog every day mostly because I'm a really good cook and that sounds sad as fuck. But the next time I do eat a hotdog, a salami, or a Reuben sandwich, I promise you that no part of my mind is going to be worrying that it will give me cancer. Constant dread is its own form of cancer and life's too short and uncertain to live with that shit 24/7.

[-] GratefullyGodless@lemmy.world 8 points 4 days ago
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[-] Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world 21 points 4 days ago

Dang, you mean to tell me that animal refuse blended into mush and saturated with salt is bad for us?!

[-] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 27 points 4 days ago

Eh, "refuse" makes sausage sound worse than it is. In the modern world anyplace with a food inspection system will typically see sausage made from cuts of meat that are perfectly edible but don't meet the grading standards likely to sell on the shelf , or the excess pieces of muscle left over after breaking primal cuts down into smaller pieces. No one wants to buy USDA certified Meh grade steak, or a palm sized wedge of uneven thickness. So they get sent off to make hamburger, sausage, and various canned or commercial meat products that don't need to be pretty.

Processed meat also includes much more benign seeming foods, like sandwich meat, ground meats, and bacon. We've known for a while that eating meat, and more so red meat, is a risk for colon problems. Red meats are more likely to be processed and therefore cheap and salty.

The new thing the study adds is that there isn't a lower bound. For a lot of things there's a quantity that isn't associated with any issues, and it's only when you go above that limit that the risk goes up.

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[-] hperrin@lemmy.ca 14 points 4 days ago

Refuse? Why do you think processed meat is animal refuse?

[-] Leet@lemmy.zip 6 points 3 days ago

Are the Germans dying in droves due to this?

[-] Atelopus-zeteki@fedia.io 16 points 4 days ago

Let's begin by reading the article, and noting this key sentence: "“Habitual consumption of even small amounts of processed meat, sugary drinks, and trans fatty acids is linked to increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, ischemic heart disease and colorectal cancer,” said lead author of the study, Dr. Demewoz Haile, a research scientist at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle. "

Health effects associated with consumption of processed meat, sugar-sweetened beverages and trans fatty acids: a Burden of Proof study https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-025-03775-8#author-information

Abstract

Previous research suggests detrimental health effects associated with consuming processed foods, including processed meats, sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) and trans fatty acids (TFAs). However, systematic characterization of the dose–response relationships between these foods and health outcomes is limited. Here, using Burden of Proof meta-regression methods, we evaluated the associations between processed meat, SSBs and TFAs and three chronic diseases: type 2 diabetes, ischemic heart disease (IHD) and colorectal cancer. We conservatively estimated that—relative to zero consumption—consuming processed meat (at 0.6–57 g d−1) was associated with at least an 11% average increase in type 2 diabetes risk and a 7% (at 0.78–55 g d−1) increase in colorectal cancer risk. SSB intake (at 1.5–390 g d−1) was associated with at least an 8% average increase in type 2 diabetes risk and a 2% (at 0–365 g d−1) increase in IHD risk. TFA consumption (at 0.25–2.56% of daily energy intake) was associated with at least a 3% average increase in IHD risk. These associations each received two-star ratings reflecting weak relationships or inconsistent input evidence, highlighting both the need for further research and—given the high burden of these chronic diseases—the merit of continuing to recommend limiting consumption of these foods.

Then I hit a paywall. Anyone got a ladder?

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[-] frustrated_phagocytosis@fedia.io 15 points 4 days ago

There is no where safe from fascists and ICE right now so I'm gonna eat all the processed meat I want dammit. If it gets much worse I'm gonna take up smoking and drinking again too, since I'll definitely fuck up and get exiled or worse for opposing all of this shit. On a related note, are there any good sources for quality FUCK ICE magnets and bumper stickers?

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[-] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago

So I have to eat raw meat?

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[-] HubertManne@piefed.social 5 points 4 days ago
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this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2025
368 points (100.0% liked)

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