[Rhonda]: and then there's other problems with meat, you know.
[Rich]: And what is it, the ami-, the hypocyclic amines?
What do they call it again?
[Rhonda]: Well, those are nitrosamines, yeah.
[Rich]: Okay.
That's what you were talking about, right?
[Rhonda]: And there's also polycyclic amines and polycyclic carbonyls, which happen with
the heat...
[Rich]: What about the heme, and the sort of implications for promoting IGF-1.
Like there are other aspects to that, as well, right?
[Rhonda]: So IGF-1 has nothing to do with heme, but...
[Rich]: Those are two different things that are going on.
[Rhonda]: Yeah, so I'll explain.
So one of the things...So there have been studies linking protein and meat consumption
to cancer incidence.
And there was a really well-done study published last year by Valter Longo's lab at UCLA.
And he has been doing a lot of research in this area.
He's a very good scientist.
He does studies on humans that are correlative, so epidemiological studies, but he backs them
up with mouse data and then goes into like cultured cells and he teases apart all the
mechanisms.
So he doesn't just make an association.
He first makes the observation.
He finds the correlation.
And then he goes into the mouse model.
And he gives them a certain diet.
And he controls everything.
And then he goes and dives even further into all the biochemical and molecular pathways
in different cultured cells.
So which is why he always ends up getting like a really high impact scientific publication
like "Nature" or "Science."
And he's always publishing in those really high impact journals.
So a study that he published last year, it was looking at...I've forgot the time frame,
but it was people that were eating protein, in meat.
And it looked at how much they were eating and correlated it to their all-cause mortality.
So they were looking at cancer or they were looking at different cardiovascular-related
diseases.
I'm not sure they were looking at neurodegenerative disease, but they were definitely looking
at those two.
And they found that people that eat more meat had a higher all-cause mortality.
They had more cardiovascular disease.
They had more cancer.
And that was the real main thing.
They had more cancer, but it was a certain...You had...It was people that were older, but not
too old.
So once you got to a certain age like above...I don't remember exactly, 55 or something like
that, the opposite was true.
So protein became more important.
Protein intake was inversely correlated with mortality.
So the higher the protein intake, the lower the all-cause mortality.
And I think that has a lot to do with frailty.
You know, as you get older, you fall down and break a bone.
You know, muscle mass is also a very important indicator of all-cause mortality.
And not everyone that's vegan is training like you, is very aware of making sure they
are maintaining the muscle mass and staying physically fit.
So protein does become important as you're getting older because you don't want to break
a hip and then it takes you out, you know.
So, but what was interesting about this study is that they went into animal models.
And they gave animal models cancer.
So they basically injected them with some tumor cells, various types of cancer.
And then they gave them either a high-protein or low-protein diet.
And they looked at the tumor growth.
So it wasn't like feeding mice protein initiated cancer, which is a very different point.
So there's something that initiates cancer.
And there's something that can then...
[Rich]: Promotes the growth.
[Rhonda]: Promote it to grow.
And so IGF-1 is a growth factor that's...It's important for muscle growth.
It's important for neuronal cell survival.
It's important to making new neurons.
I mean, you want IGF-1.
You want it to repair damaged muscle.
You want it to make new neurons.
And when you're a kid, you want it to grow.
However, as you become older and you have accumulated a lifetime of damaged cells...Let's
say you're eating a diet that's high in refined carbohydrates and sugars, damaged cells.
You're eating a bunch of processed meat, things that are causing DNA damage.
You don't want damaged cells to keep growing.
You want them to die.
[Rich]: Right.
So the IGF-1 is really like throwing gasoline on the fire.
[Rhonda]: Exactly.
Exactly.
So it's all about the context.
And so these mice that were given a high protein diet, the tumors grew faster.
Duh.
Their IGF-1 was going up.
IGF-1 is a major promoter of cancer.
And it can allow cancer cells to grow and thrive.
And when we have a damaged cell, our body knows it.
And our body goes, "Oh, wow.
This is not good.
If I don't kill this guy, it's gonna potentially become cancer."
So it kills it, but you know what IGF-1 does?
IGF-1 comes over and it's like, "Oh, no.
Don't die.
No, no, we're cool.
We're cool."
So it like overrides that whole inherent mech pathway that we have in our bodies that are
protective against getting cancer.
So IGF-1 can be very bad, but it all depends on the person.
So if you have someone that is very health-conscientious, that's an omnivore, people that are not eating
processed foods, refined carbohydrates, not eating a bunch of processed meats they're
eating their healthy meats and they're getting a lot of plants, a lot of micronutrients,
they're exercising, they're doing all the right things to minimize the amount of damage,
to minimize their inflammation, they're getting enough fiber, all that stuff IGF-1 is not
as much of a problem for those people as it is for the person who is eating meat and all
of the other bullshit.
[Rich]: Right.
Right, right, right.
Interesting.
[Rhonda]: You know, so I think that's something very important to keep in mind is the context
so when you've got these big headlines that come out that say, "Eating meat causes cancer."
Well, not exactly, you know.
[Rich]: Right.
Well, I think it's a...Yeah, I think it's hard to talk about this study and the press
release.
I mean, the internet exploded yesterday, right, with this news.
And what's just as amazing as these scientific results and these studies is the conversation
that's swirling around it, right, and the sort of participation of journalism in that
dialogue.
So we're in this clickbait culture.
So there's this sort of commercial drive to create these sensational headlines that don't
necessarily accurately reflect what the study actually says.
I feel like you're like one of the few people who's actually qualified to pontificate on
what these studies mean actually, but most people aren't.
You know, they're just gonna read the headline.
And they're gonna draw their conclusion.
And they're not gonna really get into it.
And it's been interesting to watch kind of over the last 24 hours how these different
camps are sort of solidifying their positions.
So you have the like bacon-loving, low carb people who are basically throwing the predictable
barbs out there about how it's correlative and like blah, blah, blah.
It doesn't mean anything, which is sort of an argument you could make about most nutritional
studies because that's the very nature of how they're done, right?
And then I saw a funny headline on like a parody site.
It said something about like, "You know, in the wake of the WHO press release, vegans
250% more likely to be snarky," or something like that.
You know what I mean?
So it's like both sides can participate in this dance that's going on around it.
And, of course it's not like, "Eat a piece of bacon and you get cancer."
It's certainly not that, but I think also to say, to just dismiss it out of hand and
say, "This is meaningless and doesn't require us to even look at it and is lacking merit,"
is ridiculous as well.
I mean, I think that this was a consortium of scientists that span not just the WHO,
but these other organizations over 10 countries.
I think they looked at 800 studies.
[Rhonda]: Eight hundred studies.
[Rich]: And that dealt with many populations of people.
And, of course you can't control...They're human beings.
You can't control for every variable.
It's impossible to do so.
And I think they even did try to control for certain co-factors.
And that actually made the statistics less dramatic in doing so.
And they still were able to to come up with these correlative figures of what was it,
18% for every 50 grams of processed meat, more likely for, was it, colon cancer, colorectal
cancer, 17% per 100 gram of red meat for a couple other, pancreatic cancer, I think a
couple other ones, whatever.
So you can parse that out and draw from it what you will, but I think at the end of the
day, like what I take away from it is saying, "Yeah, well, this is something that there
is clearly some risks associated with this.
And we need to like take a look at that."