Dr Richard Bogle PhD FRCP FESC FACC DHMSA
Consultant Cardiologist
  • Home
  • NHS Practice
    • NHS Practice
    • St Helier Hospital
    • Epsom Cardiac Day Unit
    • St George's Hospital Radial Lounge
    • Echocardiography
  • Biography
    • Qualifications
    • About me >
      • Curriculum vitae
    • Appraisal and Revalidation
    • BCIS Angioplasty Audit
    • Publications
    • Recent abstracts
    • Research
    • Charitable activity
  • The Heart
    • Cardiac Investigations >
      • AliveCor ECG monitor
      • Guide to investigations for suspected angina
      • CT calcium scoring
      • Electrocardiogram (ECG)
      • Exercise treadmill test
      • Echocardiogram
      • Valve disease
      • Coronary Angiography
      • Pressure Wire Studies
      • Intra-vascular Ultrasound
    • Arrhythmias >
      • Atrial fibrillation >
        • Stroke Risk in AF
        • New Oral Anticoagulants
        • Presentations on AF
      • Atrial flutter
      • Pre-excitation syndromes
      • Ventricular ectopic beats
      • Ventricular arrhythmias
      • Pacemaker
      • DC Cardioversion
    • Cardiomyopathy
    • Coronary heart disease >
      • Cardiac syndrome X
      • Coronary Angioplasty
      • Coronary bypass surgery
    • Dizziness and blackouts
    • Fitness to fly
    • Fitness to drive
    • Heart Failure
    • Hypertension >
      • Patients guide to blood pressure medication
      • Home blood pressure monitors
      • Hypertension diet
      • Laragh's method
      • Renal sympathetic ablation for hypertension
      • Conn's Syndrome
    • Heart Screening >
      • Sports Cardiology
      • Cardiovascular Disease Risk
    • Medications >
      • Glyceryl trinitrate
    • Patient information leaflets
  • News and Links
  • Miscellany
    • History of Medicine
    • History of Coronary Angiography and Angioplasty
    • Stamps in Cardiology
    • A History of Medicine in 100 Objects
    • BSE Acceditation Course Introduction
    • BSE Acceditation Course Physics
    • BSE Acceditation Course Anatomy and Function
    • BSE Acceditation Course Mitral
    • BSE Acceditation Course Aortic
    • BSE Acceditation Course Congenital
    • BSE Acceditation Course Pericardium
  • Blog
  • RACPC Form
  • Cardiology Teaching St Helier Hospital

Are bacon and eggs really as deadly as smoking?

5/3/2014

1 Comment

 
Picture
Are you confused about what to eat? It can't be because of lack of information. Search Google today for the word "diet" and it will give you over 136 million hits with over 4 million in the News section alone. Most stories are here today and gone tomorrow and who bothers to look at the evidence behind the headline.

Take the one on today's front pages: "Eating too much meat and eggs is as deadly as smoking." Really? Taken at face value this should be a public health emergency. Warnings on plates used to serve the full English breakfast ought to be introduced, we might even call for an ingestion charge on meat and eggs! But probably what will happen is that we will forget the headline by tomorrow certain in the knowledge there will always be another story this time telling us that too much fat or sugar or carbohydrate or this or that is bad. Confused about what the best diet is? Of course you are who wouldn't be? With so much conflicting information it is difficult to know what to believe.

So what of the study reported today? Should we worry about meat and eggs? Are they really as dangerous as smoking?The story comes from a paper published in Cell Metabolism. This is a "good journal" with a very high impact factor. In other words you would be proud to have your research published there. The study followed 6.381 adults, 50 years old and over for 18 years. So far so good, a large study sample with long follow up. They found that people with diabetes were more likely to die from diabetes if they had a high protein intake.

They assessed protein intake using a diary card for 24h at the start of the study ie about 20 years ago. Are you still eating the same diet as you were 20 years ago? I thought so but anyway not to worry the authors assumed that the people's diet remained unchanged for 20 years. When the results were analysed there were no differences in death rates overall, cancer or cardiovascular deaths.  Now this ins interesting because the group eating a lot of protein had a much higher proportion of diabetic patients and you would have though that the cardiovascular death rate would be higher in that group.

Then if you look at the data more carefully you notice that the death rate from diabetes in the study is very low indeed (about 1in 100). Most people died of cancer or cardiovascular disease as expected

The proportion of diabetics in the high protein group was 17% whereas it was only 2.6% in the low protein group.  Presumably this reflects the advice given previously by diabetes specialists to recommend high protein diets to diabetics as it was thought that the blood sugar levels were easier to control. So this group has far higher numbers of diabetics and if you look at the proportion of diabetics in each group which died of diabetes then it is 7.7 for the low, 8.7 for the intermediate and 11.8 for the high protein groups. Not so different and because the numbers are small the accuracy is low.

Not withstanding this the investigators analysed the data some more and managed to find an association between age, protein consumption and cancer mortality. If you are 50–65 years you get benefit from a low protein intake but once you are over 65 then it is harmful.  Is this biologically plausible?

So that's just one headline on one day. But there is a message there: Meat and eggs are as deadly as smoking. This is confusion at best and harmful at worst as this study really doesn't support that conclusion. In the end it is likely that the public, seeing so many stories which apparently contradict each other, will decide that no-one really knows what the best diet is and carry on eating their usual food.

1 Comment

    RSS Feed

    Picture

    Dr Richard Bogle

    The opinions expressed in this blog are strictly those of the author and should not be construed as the opinion or policy of my employers nor recommendations for your care or anyone else's. Always seek professional guidance instead.

    Archives

    November 2019
    March 2016
    February 2016
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    November 2013
    October 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013

    Categories

    All
    Ablation
    Acute Coronary Syndromes
    Acute Coronary Syndromes
    Adherence
    Angioplasty
    Anticoagulants
    Arrhythmia
    Association
    Atherosclerosis
    Atrial Fibrillation
    Auenbrugger
    Bergamot
    Brugada
    Calcium Channel Blockers
    Cancer
    Cardiovascular Risk
    Chest Pain
    Cholesterol
    Cleveland Street
    Clinical Examination
    Colchicine
    Compliance
    Concordance
    Congenital Heart Disease
    Coronary Artery Disease
    Coronary Artery Disease
    C-reactive Protein
    Decision Aids
    Diet
    Ectopics
    Eggs
    Ezetimibe
    Frailty
    Frank's Sign
    Guidelines
    Hawthorne Effect
    Heart Failure
    History Of Medicine
    Hypertension
    ICD
    Internet
    Interventional Cardiology
    Joseph Rogers
    Lipids
    Malaria
    Marathon
    Medicines
    Nice Guidelines
    Nitrovasodilators
    NOAC
    Nudge
    Nutrition
    OCT
    Palpitations
    Pharmacy
    Pressure Wire
    Proteus
    Salt
    Smoking
    Spironolactone
    Statins
    Statistics
    Stent
    Stress
    Stroke
    Syndrome X
    Takotsubo
    Valve-disease
    Vein Grafts
    Ventricular Ectopics
    VF/VT
    Warfarin
    Weekend Working
    Workhouse

    View my profile on LinkedIn
Return to home page

Privacy Statement
Disclaimer
© Dr Richard Bogle 2020
patient feedback
Photo used under Creative Commons from peddhapati