So these relatively weak study designs are not meant to be a source for definitive statements about how a single food or nutrient increased or decreased the risk of a disease by a specific percentage. Researchers try to control for “confounding factors,” the unmeasured variables that may lead to one person getting cancer, and another staying healthy. They then look backward in time and try to determine if any patterns of exposure (in this case, eating meat) differed in those with cancer compared to those who don’t have cancer.īut since meat eaters differ so fundamentally from those who don’t eat meat, as we’ve explained, the reasons the two groups have varying health outcomes could have nothing to do with eating meat. For each person with a disease (a case), they find a match (a control) - or someone who doesn’t have the disease. Why nutrition science is getting betterĪ growing chorus of critics has been pointing out that the bedrock of nutrition science - large, observational studies - are often hopelessly limited in their ability to give us clear answers about which foods are beneficial for health.įor example, with case-control studies - a type of observational research - researchers start with an endpoint (for example, people who already have cancer). It’s a big deal, and a pattern worth looking at if we want to understand why the things we thought we knew keep turning out to be wrong. Other influential research in psychology has also been toppled by more refined scientific methods lately - that’s what the “replication crisis” is all about. And it’s not just nutrition science that’s experiencing this kind of reckoning.
The real story behind the meat news is that a widespread understanding about nutrition was changed by better science and stronger methodology.
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