this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2025
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[–] pageflight@lemmy.world 114 points 1 week ago (20 children)

mice were fed three types of red meat – pork, beef and mutton

I assume most mice don't regularly eat large livestock.

Are mice evolved to eat red meat? The article doesn't really say.

However, there were limitations to the study. As well as it being a mice model [...]

[–] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 41 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yes, mice eat red meat.

Mice are omnivores and are opportunistic eaters. They’ll eat whatever they can find.

[–] limer@lemmy.ml 33 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Mice do not eat that much meat of other mammals.

Giving an over abundance of it, for a long time, will shock the mouse.

[–] usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.ml 16 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

Humans historically, also didn't eat much meat up until very recently. More recent research suggests our ancient human ancestors were eating far more plants than meat

EDIT: For example:

Here we present the isotopic evidence of pronounced plant reliance among Late Stone Age hunter-gatherers from North Africa (15,000–13,000 cal BP), predating the advent of agriculture by several millennia

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-024-02382-z

[–] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 24 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

This is just not true in the bigger picture of human evolution. That paper focuses on humans in North Africa 15,000–13,000  years ago which is a very tiny snapshot in time and geography.

Eating meat is a major part of what separated archaic humans from other primates; it is theorized that the calories from meat is part of what helped us grow our larger brains. Homo Habilis was eating meat 2.6 million years ago, well before Homo Sapiens even existed. Homo Erectus hunted to the point of wiping out many large herbivores over a 1.5 million year time period. They are meat regularly enough for tapeworms to speciate specifically for us as hosts.

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[–] limer@lemmy.ml 21 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Primates in general are designed to eat red meat. Chimps, our closest cousin, go on regular hunts against other primates, and eat them

[–] usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

My point is that it was way more rare than what people's diets look like today. Not zero but not dominant. Wide reliance on plants is even true before modern agriculture. For example:

Here we present the isotopic evidence of pronounced plant reliance among Late Stone Age hunter-gatherers from North Africa (15,000–13,000 cal BP), predating the advent of agriculture by several millennia

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-024-02382-z

[–] limer@lemmy.ml 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I myself am a victim of the modern diet, and lack of exercise. I almost died of high cholesterol and other related factors, before I started to eat better and be physically active.

I’m a firm believer in a varied diet, and that most people should have a less meaty intake.

Just, we are designed to be hunters and eat red meat

[–] PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 week ago (2 children)

My parents fed me red meat for almost every dinner I can recall growing up. I’m early 30s and my cholesterol is very high. I was able to drop my cholesterol significantly in one month by changing my diet to mostly vegan with chicken and fish once or twice a week. Switched my morning eggs out to egg whites. Cooked in avocado oil instead of butter.

[–] JasSmith@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 week ago (4 children)

That’s very impressive. Dietary factors generally account for a very small proportion of blood LDL. Your diet must have been very poor and you likely have some known genetic mutations which greatly exacerbate the issue.

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[–] xep@discuss.online 8 points 1 week ago

Isotopic testing shows that early humans primarily subsisted on herbivores and small game, including fish. Please refer to this study for Europe.

Early modern humans also appear to have regularly hunted large herbivores (55–57), but there is also evidence for the use of small game, including fish at some of these sites (15, 16).

Or this study, also from Nature, again studying the first modern humans and late Neandertals in Europe:

based on stable isotopes, the mammoth seems to contribute the major part of the dietary protein of humans in a time range between 50,000 and 30,000 years ago and across wide areas spanning from SW France11 to the Crimean Peninsula53 (Fig. 6, Supplementary Fig. 5–8).

It is inaccurate to state that humans did not eat much meat prior to modern times.

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[–] FlowVoid@lemmy.world 32 points 1 week ago

In the animal study, mice were fed three types of red meat – pork, beef and mutton – every day for two weeks. Then, the researchers triggered colitis (a model for IBD) using a chemical called dextran sulfate sodium (DSS).

They definitely aren't evolved to eat dextran sulfate sodium.

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 19 points 1 week ago

Was the first thing I thought of. “Standard diets,” vs non-standard pretty quickly calls into question how much we need to account for the divergence from typical. If I go to India (I’m from the USA), there will be meals that aren’t standard for me that might cause distress that are nonetheless fine for the local population.

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[–] TheAlbatross@lemmy.blahaj.zone 58 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Look I'm all for the idea that we eat too much meat currently and all, but are mice really good analogs for humans in this instance? I'm not a scientist of any sort, so I really don't know, but it seems to me like a creature that doesn't naturally eat, like, any red meat would be a bad analog here.

[–] FlowVoid@lemmy.world 15 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Humans also don't generally eat poison. But the mice in this study were poisoned with DSS after eating meat. Maybe meat is not the real culprit here...

[–] TheAlbatross@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 1 week ago

Honey I don't know bout you but it's Friday night this human is absolutely gonna be enjoying some poison!

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[–] MourningDove@lemmy.zip 45 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (10 children)

Well… I guess we’re just not going to bother taking into account that red meat isn’t part of a mouse’s diet? And that maybe they’re going to react poorly when force fed things they generally don’t eat? This type of bullshit science needs to be called out for what it is.

Next, maybe we should see how well whales react if we feed them 3,000lbs of french fries.

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[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 34 points 1 week ago (1 children)

What if I eat the red meat without stuffing it into a mouse first?

[–] Alexstarfire@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago

Need a new study for that.

[–] fubarx@lemmy.world 34 points 1 week ago (2 children)

That's it! Uninviting all the mice from the next BBQ.

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[–] NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.world 25 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

They intentionally chemically triggered IBD in the mice, how the fuck is this conclusive of anything?

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[–] xep@discuss.online 22 points 1 week ago

Next time I meet up with my mouse friends I'll be sure to let them know.

[–] zonnewin@feddit.nl 21 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I'm not a mouse, and humans have been eating red meat (whenever they could get it) for literally aeons.

[–] hamburger@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Sure, but they had meat maybe once or twice per week. Nowadays we have meat five times per day.

[–] smayonak@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

They ate protein moderately and only enough to satiate their appetite. But if they were using storage methods ranging from hot springs to drying and fermentation they were eating red meat daily for months. Remaining meat was given to dogs (which eat unlimited amounts of protein). Fat was what humans ate in vast quantities. They'd go to extreme lengths to eat all sources of fat and marrow.

Although this study though doesn't make quite the same point that you're making.

The researchers artificially caused IBD in the mice by injecting them with a compound that damages their mucosal layer in the gut.

So what they're saying is that once you have IBD you might want to eat a low protein diet. This is consistent with diets that were used to treat diarrhea (which suggests ibd) such as the BRAT diet.

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[–] sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You should see what a pure veggie diet does to humans! Crop dusting left and right.

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[–] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 20 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I didn't know we had so many PhD level gastroenterologists on Lemmy, I'm glad we've attracted such an educated community and we're not filled with reactionary nerds who vaguely remember their freshman zoology class.

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[–] JasSmith@sh.itjust.works 19 points 1 week ago (2 children)

For me this is a case of picking the lesser poison. I have IBD and FODMAPs give me major issues. This means most fruit and vegetables, plus dairy and wheat, cause major issues. Meat, including red meat, is one of the few foods which don’t cause me intestinal pain, bloating, and diarrhea. Studies indicate a not insignificant proportion of the population have issues with FODMAPs, and they also tend to fare much better with meat.

[–] MrIlves@sopuli.xyz 10 points 1 week ago (4 children)

I used to have mediocre IBS symptoms. Never to the point of being debilitating, but such that I was always aware where the closest toilet was and got anxious if it was too far away.

There was an article about studies being done on using common antihistamin to treat IBS that helped in many cases. Tried it and never looked back. That pretty much solved my bowel ussues.

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[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That's fine, we already know how to cure any disease in mice.

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[–] lanigerous@feddit.uk 16 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Where's that old Twitter bot that would append in mice to reports of these bullshit studies?

[–] usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Does the Lemmy post title not have "in mice" in it for you? I added it to the title of the post to clarify this. It should show as

Red meat wreaks havoc on gut and drives inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in study on mice

Whereas the original title of the article was:

Red meat wreaks havoc on gut and drives inflammatory bowel disease

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[–] Infrapink@thebrainbin.org 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Let me get this straight. Herbivores shouldn't eat meat‽ Holy crap! this changes everything!

[–] rustydomino@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

Mice are omnivores like us. That said, just because something is bad for a mouse doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad for humans.

[–] rafoix@lemmy.zip 12 points 1 week ago
[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago (13 children)

Personally know multiple carnivores who can't stop shitting themselves and still swear by the diet.

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[–] Geodad@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

Anecdotally, I've had way less stomach issues since shifting largely to white meat and a mostly plant based diet.

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