What's the Beef with Beef? Study Breakdown | Educational Video | Layne Norton PhD

One of the limitations of nutritional research is that long term studies of more than a year by nature typically have to be observational & not experimental or randomized controlled trials (RCTs). That is because it’s nearly impossible to achieve the level of control necessary to see long term differences in hard outcomes like cardiovascular disease (CVD) incidence or mortality. These studies have to be decades long & as such must be observational in nature as I don’t know too many people who want to be told what to eat for decades & moreover will actually stick to it. When it comes to well controlled human RCTs we have to examine surrogate measures. In the case of CVD this means looking at blood lipids like LDL, non-HDL cholesterol, ApoB, HDL, triacylglycerides (TAGs), etc as these markers tend to be good predictors of the risk of CVD

It is often advised that people who want to reduce their risk of CVD should cut down their red meat intake since red meat intake is associated with increased risk of CVD. But this risk is confounded by the fact that people who eat more red meat tend to consume it from processed sources of food, high in calories, & have overall poorer diet quality than people who limit or abstain from red meat. As such, this meta-analysis (PMID: 39649475) sought to only examine unprocessed or minimally processed beef intake & it’s effects on blood lipids

The meta-analysis found that amongst eligible RCTs, beef intake had minimal impact on nearly all CVD risk factors except for a small increase in LDL cholesterol that became non-significant when a single study was removed that heavily influenced the outcome

Does this mean carnivores are right & you should slam down all the ribeyes you can? No. While I do not think beef itself independently raises the risk of CVD, consuming fatty cuts of beef that are high in saturated fat will absolutely raise LDL which is a causative risk factor for CVD. But if you are choosing lean sources of beef, is it something I’m concerned about? Not really so long as you are living an overall healthy lifestyle

Get my research review REPS:
biolayne.com/REPS
Get my new nutrition coaching app, Carbon Diet Coach: http://onelink.to/9h4d62
My research based supplements: http://www.outworknutrition.com
Get my books on how to lose fat: http://www.biolaynestore.com
Take my online course "The Science of Nutrition": https://chfi.click/laynenorton_online
Get Custom Workouts by me for $12.99/month:
https://biolayne.com/workout-builder/

  / laynenorton  
  / biolayne  
  / biolayne