[Music] according to the global burden of disease study diets high in processed meat like bacon ham hot dogs lunch meat sausage may kill off more than a hundred thousand people every year mostly due to heart disease but also cancer and diabetes resulting in millions of healthy years of life lost every year around the world and it doesn't take much the union of concerned scientists estimated that if americans could cut down to an ounce a week thousands of annual cancer deaths could be averted but that's on a population scale how can we better understand our individual
risk though the nutrirex panel and the annals of internal medicine meet papers i've done the last few videos about discarded their own findings using their numbers a reduction in red and processed meat consumption is associated with 13 lower risk of premature death what exactly does that mean like what does a 13 increase risk of death mean to get a better handle on it let me introduce the concept of microlives acute risks such as riding a motorbike or going skydiving may result in an accident a good way to compare such risks is with a unit known
as a micromort defined as a one million chance of sudden death i did a really fascinating video about it recently however many risks we take don't kill you straight away think of all the you know lifestyle frailties we get warned about such as uh smoking drinking eating badly not exercising and so on so the micro life aims to make all these chronic risks comparable by showing how much life we lose on average when we're exposed to them a microlife is defined as 30 minutes of your life expectancy why is that well someone in their 20s
a 22 year old man or a 26 year old woman may have on average about 57 years left that's about 20 000 days or 500 000 hours or a million half hours aha so that's how they define a microlife a reduction of one of the million half hours we may have left here are some things that would on average cost a 30 year old man one micro life smoking two cigarettes drinking two pints of beer or every day they live 11 pounds overweight see how helpful this can be in terms of comparing risks so like
drinking a pint of strong beer cuts your life expectancy short as much as smoking one cigarette if it's unthinkable to you to have so little respect for your own health that you'd light up twice a day maybe one cigarette in the morning one at night then it should be just as unthinkable being 11 pounds overweight alternately you can compare life extending behavior for example eating at least five servings of fruits and veggies a day may add an average of four years onto your lifespan for men in three years for women that's up to twice as
beneficial as exercising every day but check it out exercise for 20 minutes and you add an hour to your life two microlives so for all those who say they don't have time to exercise it's like a three to one return on investment give 20 minutes of your life to get 60 minutes of life beyond that there's a bit of diminishing returns but exercise an hour a day and get back more time than you put in okay so what about the meat each burger is associated with the loss of a microlife so it's as if each
burger we're taking 30 minutes off your life so lifespan wise one burger appears equal to two cigarettes if it wouldn't occur to you to light up at lunch maybe you should choose the bean burrito instead and processed meat is even worse there's a couple of equivalent ways you could say it uh imagine two people who are identical in every way except that one eats around 50 grams of processed meat a day which is like one large sausage or hot dog or a few strips of bacon and the other eats none eating that single serving of
processed meat every day is expected to take about two years off the length of your life two years less with your loved ones your grandkids your spouse two more years of mourning or you could think about it on a day-to-day basis eating a bologna or ham sandwich every day just two slices of deli meat is expected to take around one hour off your life each day don't think there's ever enough hours in a day well you may have effectively one less depending on what you pack for lunch alternately you could think about it in terms
of effective age eating 50 grams of processed meat a day is expected to add around two years onto your effective age meaning basically give you the annual chance of dying of someone two years older in summary wrote the chair of nutrition at harvard and colleagues the neutral rex meat recommendations suffer from important methodological limitations and involve misinterpretations of nutritional evidence to improve human and planetary health as a side bonus dietary guidelines should continue to emphasize dietary patterns low in red and processed meats and high in minimally processed plant foods such as fruits vegetables whole grains
nuts and legumes beans split bees chickpeas and lentils let me end with a quote from dr dean ornish about the annals meat papers that suggested people should continue to eat meat was abandoned his lifestyle heart trial was one of the many studies the meat panel ignored it showed that a plant-based diet and lifestyle program could reverse the progression of even severe coronary heart disease the number one killer of men and women the control group actually made modest reductions in meat comparable to those in the annals review and show continued worsening of their atherosclerosis take solace
ornish said in knowing that the light drives out the darkness but these days the light has to be very bright indeed caveat emptor don't be fooled your life may depend on it [Music] you
