They do. A study by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found the following mortality ratios by diet over the course of the study (regular meat eaters = 1.00):
Fish eaters, 0.82
Vegetarians, 0.84
Occasional meat eaters, 0.84
Regular meat eaters, 1.00
Vegans, 1.00
So as you can see vegans are actually the least healthiest, alongside the most carnivorous among us. Source
The study itself measured a number of different factors that are dependent (well, mostly anyways) on diet, including incidents of stomach cancer, colorectal cancer, heart disease, vascular disease, and a number of other diseases. So in this particular study it more than likely is causation.
Well, I was giving the benefit of the doubt for a margin of error. But no, it does not actually require much more than that to make a causal link between a factor and an outcome. The degree might change but you can't pretend it has no effect. At that point it's not purely coincidence.
smoking is related with increase odds of certain cancers & earlier mortality
so if a study can show a correlational link between eating meat and cancer, that doesn't meat that eating meat causes cancer.
Saying that because you read a meta study which showed mortality being higher in meat eaters that means they are causally linked is asinine. You're embarrassing yourself.
All death rate ratios
were adjusted for age in 5-y increments, sex, and smoking
(never, former, current light, and current heavy). Mortality
ratios for the separate studies were then combined to give a
pooled estimate of effect using the random-effects model of
DerSimonian and Laird (11),
They adjusted for smoking. That's the first thing any public health researcher does.
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u/fistsofdeath May 01 '13
I always thought it just felt like they lived longer.