The World Health Organization released a report Monday that concluded processed meats are carcinogenic, and found some evidence that red meats are carcinogenic to humans.
The Daily Bruin’s Anastasia Lukianchikov spoke with Dr. David Heber, founding director of the UCLA Center for Human Nutrition and professor emeritus of medicine and public health at the David Geffen School of Medicine, about the credibility of the report and his dietary recommendations for students.
Daily Bruin: The report states a causal link between types of meats and cancer, but offers little insight into the severity of associated cancers. How seriously should this risk be considered?
David Heber: They are not cause-and-effect relationships – these are associations. They’re population studies in which you survey people to see what they’re eating and look at the incidences of various forms of cancer in the group of people. The relative risk ratios in these studies are statistically significant.
People who eat red meats have a different dietary pattern than people who do not. This Western diet pattern typically has not only more red meats but also more calories. Red meat has a lot of fat and fat calories, though there are lean kinds of meat, and obesity is a risk for many forms of cancer, independent of chemical mechanisms.
DB: People have long debated the health effects of eating meats, and the report was met with some resistance from the meat industry. How conclusive is this report, and how do you think it will impact individual dietary choices?
DH: I think when WHO speaks it has a great deal of weight. WHO is very good at recognizing various types of trends, and it clearly sees … there’s something in our diet and environment that’s doing this. Among the things that have been identified in the various impacts of nature is the impact of red meats.
Now, obviously eliminating red meats is not the only thing you should do. You should eat healthy fats, you need to exercise every day and you need to eat colorful fruits and vegetables, etc. But there’s a lot of things about how we industrially produce our meat that’s different compared to a hundred years ago when the animals were grass-fed, or even 50 years ago when the animals weren’t obese.
DB: Seven of 22 researchers who participated in a panel about the report said they disagreed with the findings. Is this disagreement reflective of the opinions of most scientists or nutritionists you know?
DH: Absolutely. A lot of the concepts that come up … are not exactly what people believe, and people object to them. There are two sides to this. Some object because everyone who eats thinks they are experts in nutrition. The other group is nutrition scientists who feel, until something has been proven beyond a shadow of doubt, you shouldn’t be giving advice to the public. I don’t believe that, and I think that if we waited for all of these things to be proven – and some will probably never be proven – then we’d all be dead.
DB: How can students practically modify their eating habits or cooking practices, and which nutrition guidelines would you prioritize for students?
DH: Students should eat seven servings a day of colorful fruits and vegetables, and eat the right amount of protein for your body, such as lean meats like chicken and ocean-caught fish such as shrimp, scallops and lobster. They should also avoid red meats and dark meat poultry and, of course, things like ham and hot dogs. The other thing to watch out for is reduced refined carbohydrates, like soda, white rice, cakes, cookies and ice cream. It doesn’t mean you never eat them, just that they’re not a part of your regular diet.
DB: How can UCLA Dining Services better modify, broaden or limit its food offerings?
DH: The key is to provide a selection of foods and teach people to select a healthy diet. You are going to encounter bad food choices all over the world, so for us to change the recipes in the dormitories is a very artificial solution and certainly not what students will encounter in the real world.
Compiled by Anastasia Lukianchikov, Bruin contributor.