Is Dairy Consumption Linked to Cancer Risk ? | Game Changers Debate

The main question here in my mind is whether there is evidence that supports being on a 100% plant-based diet with no animal products versus a diet that includes a lot of plant foods and some animal foods. I thought you were predicting the film which was talking about plant-based diets. So plant-based diets means getting the vast majority of your calories from plants and limiting or excluding animal foods. But the film essentially was all about only eating plants. No. Okay. There was no recommendation whatsoever about eating animals. How animal products will kill you, dairy products will kill you, all kinds of different animal foods. No, no, that claim was never made, see. But there was a connection. No, there was not. There was an inferred connection. No, there was not. What was the connection to cigarettes? The connection to cigarettes was the playbook that is being used by the... See that's people are conflating like what the hell. The playbook is the same playbook that they use. The same way they're using athletes and they're using advertising. We never made the claim which I... Explain that then, but be clear. So the playbook that was used by the smoking industry, so they pay for studies. Right. Right. And we know even with food, right, this has been done with cigarettes, it's been done with drugs, it's been done with food. Research shows that industry-funded studies are four to eight times more likely to have a conclusion in their favor for their product. So this is what the smoking industry did. Then they got doctors to say that smoking wasn't bad. And then they got athletes to show like, hey, smoking is good. That was the parallel that we drew. We never drew the parallel that was drawn in what the hell. So I want to make that really clear. And I've seen this in articles saying, you know, they connected meat. We didn't do that. Like if you watch the film, we never said... Well, why did you? Why did you have that in there though? If you're not saying that meat... Because they're using the same playbook. If you're not saying that meat causes cancer. You're saying... Wait a second. There are some specific claims that chicken, eating chicken and fish causes cancer, eating dairy causes cancer. There were quotes from doctors, vegan doctors in the film. No, they're not vegan. That's the other misrepresentation. So can I just go back? Can we just finish the evaluating evidence and then get into each point? Because I'm happy to address every critique. So basically the consensus, and you're saying they're changing over time, they are changing because as we get better at science, they're becoming more... The recommendation is becoming more plant-based. Despite industry influence from studies and marketing and people being paid off. Industry influence goes both ways. The sugar industry in the 60s is a big exposé pointing the finger at fat as the culprit. I don't think fat is the culprit. So that's a strawman argument. He's not saying you are saying that. No, no. I'm saying the industry is... I agree. The sugar industry is terrible and I would agree that... But can I just agree and just finish the evaluating evidence? But the thing about this section of the film was you were making some sort of a correlation between cigarettes and... The way that it was marketed. The way they're marketed and then the way meat is marketed. It's the same companies exponent. But why would you do... You would never do that about like carrots or kale or things that are predominantly healthy. Because they didn't do it. But if you're saying that you're connecting the two things, you're connecting something that clearly causes cancer, cigarettes, and these studies that were made to show people that it didn't. They were paid off. These studies were fake. There were essentially cherry-picked fake studies that were financed by the tobacco industry in order to get people to buy more cigarettes. You're making this same sort of claim about meat. Which means you think that meat is bad for you. I do. Okay. But that's where we're... No, we can disagree about that. But I'm almost finished with the evaluating evidence. So basically, what we did when we interviewed the experts is we chose leading experts in their individual fields, collectively with thousands of articles in the peer-reviewed literature. Right? And this is one of the bumpers about making a documentary. It's like you put the lower third on, people don't get to read it. So we had the chair of nutrition at Harvard, the president of the American College of Cardiology, the lead delegate of urology for the American Medical Association, the chair of anthropology at Harvard, the director of energy, environment, and resources at Chatham House. Really respected. So talking about vegan doctors, I saw some of them involved in hunting, some of them involved in animal testing. I saw one of them eating a chicken sandwich at lunch. Let's not say that this was a vegan bias coming into it, because that's just not true. These doctors... We're stretching out here. We were talking just about this one section where you're connecting cigarettes and meat. So you're saying that the same playbook is used... The same playbook. But there's no evidence that meat is bad for you. No, we can get into that. And I'm happy with this. But this is something that's actually recently been established by mainstream medicine. You understand that, right? But they've released new studies, releasing these new studies saying that there's no longer this concern that red meat causes cancer. This is also an appeal to an authority, because I can find many illustrious doctors and experts who are highly qualified that will disagree with your point of view that a diet must be 100% plant-based in order to be healthy. I didn't say... Okay, Jay, can you clarify your position? I want to know what we're actually debating. I do. But this was the connection that you made with cigarettes in the film? No. Yes, no, I think they're both promoting something bad because there's a profit incentive. So you think that meat is bad for you? 100%. You think that they're promoting it knowing that it's bad just for profit. Okay, so all Chris has to do to debunk the film, right, is convince the people watching and listening that he knows more about the consensus and the experts in their field. I would understand... No, this is what you talked about. No, I'm not interested. I'm actually not that interested in consensus of experts. I'm looking at research that is published, the peer-reviewed research that is published, including meta-analyses and even reviews of meta-analyses that have been done. A perfect example is the whole dairy and cancer section that we talked about where you had argued or Walter Willett argued that dairy products cause cancer. And I pointed to a meta-analyses that looked at over 150 different reviews and 84% of those found no association. So how is that not part of this discussion where we're talking about hundreds of scientists across different continents, different countries, they're using peer-reviewed science to show this. But in the movie, just one expert is pointing to one group of studies without mentioning that. That seems disingenuous. That's a fair point, right? So this is the 2018 meta-analyses. Have you got a slide for that? If not, I've got your slide. 107. Slide 107. No, this is a 2019 meta-analyses. 153 studies, right? Yeah, and I can get a lot further into it. No, I'd love to. Because that's not the only one. I'd love to. Because at 9 o'clock last night, until 9 o'clock last night, I thought Chris just made a bunch of mistakes interpreting the data. And I'm going to show you how he is misleading people on this study. Okay? So if you can bring up slide 107, Jamie? Can we see the slide? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay. So you see what he's putting quotes? Okay. 84% of meta-analyses on dairy consumption showed either no association or an inverse association between dairy and cancer. And then you go on to point out what an inverse means is that people that eat more dairy get lower rates of cancer. That's what he's implying. When you put something in quotes, what does that mean to you? Means that's what he said. Yeah, but that quotation is quoting the study. Right? Fair enough? Is that what they said in the study? No, that's not what they said in the study. That was my summary of the evidence of the study. Right. Thank you. But when you put something in quotes, that's misleading. But that's his quote. Okay, fine. Okay, let's go with that. But he's not putting things in quotes saying that someone else said it. Totally. I mean, that's how, when you, anything you do in literature, when you put something in quotation marks, you're quoting the study. But let's just bypass that. I'll agree. Okay, so can you bring up slide 109, see what they actually said? Okay, this is the actual quote. Out of 153 reported medin analyses comparing highest versus lower dairy consumption, 109, 71%, showed no evidence of a statistically significant association between dairy consumption and instance of cancers. 20 showed a decreased risk of cancers with dairy consumption, and 24 showed an increased risk of cancers with dairy consumption. Now this is actually, until last night at like nine o'clock, I realized what he was doing. Okay. If you want to go to, I mean, just to sum it up, if you go to slide 110. Wait, can we stay on here for a second? Do you agree with that? What's your interpretation of- Do you agree that that was the quote from the study? Absolutely. Okay, good. Okay, so- But I'm asking you what your interpretation, does that in your mind show a strong connection between dairy and cancer? Okay, Joe, you're going to really realize here what Chris is doing. Okay, this is really, and I'm glad that you brought it up. Please answer what you're saying. Okay, so can I just say, the reason you brought this up is because Walter Willett said there was a strong connection between prostate cancer and dairy, correct? Yeah. So you brought something about all cancers. Okay, so- Yeah, and in this study, about half of the study showed a connection between prostate cancer and dairy, and half didn't. Right. Okay, so- That's still not a compelling argument that dairy is associated with cancer. Okay, so can we- You had a coin flip, basically. Right, that's not actually true. I'll explain why that's not true. You still haven't answered my question about this data here. I will, I'm trying to tell you. I'm trying to tell you. Okay. Slide one and 10. Well, let's stay with this, explain this first, and then we'll move to the next slide. Okay, no, no, slide one and 10 is explaining this. Okay. It's just breaking that down. Okay. So there was statistically significant associations between dairy consumption and insulin for cancers. 71% showed no evidence. 13% showed a decreased risk, and 16% showed an increased risk. So you see what Chris did to represent this? He added 71% and 13% to make 84%, right? You follow? This is how you got it, right? So you added 73%, 71% and 13% to get 84%. So his statement from this study was 84% showed no evidence or a decreased risk. That's what he made you believe. Well, 71% shows no evidence. 13% shows decreased risk. If you add the two of them together, that's 84% shows no evidence or a decreased risk. That's correct. But what he could have said is 71% plus 16% and that's 87%. He could have said 87% show no evidence or an increased risk. It's 84. How are you getting 81? No, 71 plus 16. Oh. So I could make the claim. No evidence or a decreased risk? No, no. No, we're getting really into some answers here. No, we're not. The burden of proof. You were claiming in the film was claiming dairy causes cancer. My claim was the bulk of the evidence suggests there is no association or inverse association. That's true. We're playing with 70% shows no evidence. I agree. 13% shows decreased risk. But hold on a second. The decreased risk and the increased risk are almost the same. Which is higher. Which is higher. 3% shows increased risk on this one study. The point of this study is that his study that he brought up showing this is very strong evidence. His statement was very misleading. He added up those two and then he finished it up by saying, so basically there's an inverse correlation. But he did not show, he could have said 87% showed no risk or an increased risk. Instead he chose to summarize it saying 84%. But there's no risk and an increased risk. It's a very different thing. No, I know. Joe. Because you're talking about something causing cancer. No, I agree. Exactly. And so he couldn't, there wasn't strong enough things to find that total cancer was increased. We know that as research shows, this included, did it not, industry funded research. Two thirds of research is industry funded. Right. And research shows that... Are you proposing that we throw out every study? Because one of the main studies in your film was sponsored by the Haas Avocado Board. The one that claims that animal products contribute to inflammation. I'm not sure if I'm going to throw them out. I'm not sure if I'm going to throw them out. I'm saying that industry funded studies. And by the way, industry funded studies, they typically only put them out and it shows in their favor. There's no obligation for industry when they do a study to release it. Yeah. I'm familiar with that. I've written a lot about that. So Joe, what did you think that the industry and the meat and dairy industry says far more money than the plant based industry, right? You'd agree with that. Actually we can look at some statistics on that. But Joe. I don't know who's spending more money. Would you disagree that industry funded research has a four to eight times increased risk compared to non industry funded research in finding inclusions in their favor? I think industry research is definitely a problem, but I see it as a problem across the board and I have some statistics we can talk about. Do you not admit that you here led the audience to believe that there was a potentially decreased risk overall? You made it sound very high because you didn't split between the no difference. That was not my intention. It was just to summarize the data, not to spend 10 minutes as we're doing now talking about one study when there's a huge... Right, because it was a procrastinated by a misleading claim. But no, it's misleading if you said the other way. It's completely accurate. If you said showed no evidence or showed an increased risk, 84%, that seems like it's misleading. I don't think that would be misleading also. Do you want to look at... I'm just saying he could have said that, but he chose... But we're talking about something causing cancer, James. Exactly, so he shouldn't be making that claim. But the increased risk is what we're looking for. What we're looking for is evidence of it causing cancer. 71%, the bulk of the evidence shows no evidence. That's exactly what my point. If you're claiming that something increases, then I'm saying... So Joe, honestly, Joe, that doesn't hold up. You honestly don't think that that statement, instead of just putting the 71% showed no evidence, 13% showed, that would be the fairest, the most honest, explanation, like, summary of that statement. I would say that if you wanted to say it the most accurately, yes, that's the best way to say it. 71% showed no evidence, 13% showed decreased risk, but I don't have a problem with saying 84% showed no evidence or a decreased risk. Because we're talking about something causing cancer. That's the relevant point. That's the relevant point. The relevant point is, does the study show that dairy causes cancer? The primary evidence, most of the evidence says it shows no evidence or it shows a decreased risk. That's the bulk of it. Versus 87%. No, no, no. 87% shows increased risk is only 16%. No, no, but you're just adding no evidence to increased risk to get 87%. That's the logical. Okay, then let's throw out the no evidence. Let's throw that out. Let's throw out no evidence. Why would we throw that out? The burden of proof is to show evidence that indicates that dairy causes cancer. If you do a study and it shows that it doesn't, then that's not in support of the claim that dairy causes cancer. I'm agreeing that the metallurgists could not find an association. But I'm also pointing out that industry funded studies were included in it and they are more likely to find no connection. Okay, so there's 153 studies. You're claiming we should just, that all of them are industry funded and we should throw out this huge review of 153 meta-analyses because of industry funding. What is the basis for that claim? No, I'm not. I'm saying that it sways the results. You can't see that. I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't accept that I have a hundred and fifty-three studies that were in this meta-analyses that they're going to sway the results to the point where these findings aren't valid. And we could do the same thing with all of the studies that you have linked to in the film. And we can also look at other studies on dairy and cardio metabolic outcomes that we have. I've got lots of large reviews that we can look at. And again, anyone can bring up. This is a pointless discussion to have if you're just going to sit there and say industry funding makes these results invalid. That's not my only point. You're saying it makes them suspect. Correct, yes. And it could have swayed it in the other direction. It has in the past. But wait, how many of the- It has, as I do agree with you about the cigarette thing. How many of the 153 studies, meta-analyses, which each also had individual studies in them, are so biased by industry funding that we can't count on the findings? Well, I would hope that you would know more than I. I mean, basically you've got sitting here- Why would- you know, this is a- we can't get very far in this discussion if you're going to claim that we can't even talk about studies in the peer-reviewed literature because industry funding completely biases the findings. No, I'm not saying that's the case. I'm saying just because they couldn't- even though there were more showing an increased risk than showed a decreased risk, right, I am saying that it's possible that the industry funding- That's a leading statement. More showed increase than decrease. Than decrease, that's correct. No, but there's 71% showed no change at all. No, I agree with that. I agree. So that's a wash. So, no, it's not a wash. It's not even close to a wash change. No, it's not a wash. If you have a hypothesis, this thing causes cancer, and then you do a ton of studies and there's no association, that hypothesis is no longer correct. It's not a wash. No, that's actually not true based on epidemiology. If you have 10 studies that show no association and 10 that show an association, then that outcome is an association. You don't have that at all here. But I'm not- again, I'm not arguing- What he said, you have 84% that showed nothing or a decrease risk. Right, and we also have a- This is the opposite. You could say 84% showed no evidence and then- and forget about decreased risk. Just say 84% showed no evidence. Forget about decreased risk. You still have only 16% showed an increased risk. Right, but that's not- When you do an epidemiology study, you have to take into account all the other factors in this person's lives. Totally. You have to take into account whether they drink, whether they smoke, whether they exercise. Totally. You know, sedentary lifestyle. There's a lot of factors. So that would- if you had something that was causing cancer, you would expect the results to be flipped. You would expect the results to be 16% showed no evidence, 71% or 84% showed an increase. That would be something you would say, hey, this is causing cancer. This is more likely- That's not how epidemiology works though. If you had- Well, epidemiology is slippery anyway. No, I agree. I agree. Wait, wait. How is that not how epidemiology works? Okay, if you've got- if you have even- if you had 10 studies showing no evidence, just because you don't find something doesn't mean that it exists. Okay. The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. Okay, but let's say this. If you had 100 studies and 70 of those studies showed an increased risk of cancer, wouldn't you say that thing causes cancer most likely? Most- well, if it was all epidemiology then it's a question you can't tell the causation. Okay, so let's do 100 studies and 70% now show no evidence. Yeah. Wouldn't you say it's most likely that there's no evidence? No, that's not how it works. Oh. Oh, how does it work? How does it work? So if you've got 70 studies that couldn't show a correlation and 30% that did, that is still in favor of showing that there is a correlation. Well, no, no, no. Show- now we're doing 70 studies. 70%, look, 70% of the people in these studies, if you have all these studies, you have 100 studies and 70% of the people in all these studies are showing an increased risk of cancer. We would agree. Right. Well, you can't prove causation based on observational picture. But you would agree there's most likely a connection. Most likely, yeah. Right. Now if it's reversed, now if 70% of these studies show there's no increased risk of cancer. Or 84% to be more of that. Or 84%, which is because you add in the decreased risk. We're not even adding the decreased risk, which shows that you're less likely to get cancer, which is almost the same as an increased risk of cancer, which in my eyes is a wash. You would assume that we're talking about something that doesn't give you cancer. Well, I agree that this study found that they couldn't prove a causation, right? They couldn't prove a link between cancer and- But you made it out like he was being deceptive. He is being deceptive. I don't agree with that. I don't agree with that because you're trying to show that these studies are proving, or at least making this correlation between consumption of dairy products and cancer. But the evidence doesn't show that. If you want to look at it in its entirety, the evidence shows that most of the 71% showed no evidence of it causing cancer. 13% showed it's actually better for you. You have less risk of cancer than not eating dairy. 13%. And then 16% showed more. And then 16% showed increased risk of cancer. And again, when you're talking about epidemiology studies, when you're talking about 16 out of 100, you have to throw in all the other factors in these people's lives. I agree. That's why they didn't find it. But can I just ... The reason you point this up is prostate cancer, right? And so if you look at slide 113- Prostate cancer, that's disturbing. So it's 50-50 with dairy consumption versus- Wait, that's not 113. But a lot of people get prostate cancer too. Isn't that also an issue? That's a high risk- That is 113. Isn't that a high risk for males' prostate cancer? It's a high one. Whether they consume milk or not. So just so ... In this metronolist that you point to, the highest connection that they could find between dairy and any type of cancer was prostate cancer. So if you look at the black line, that shows no association. If you look at the green line, that's decreased association and the red line was increased association. That was the metronolist that you provided. Yeah. So you brought this study up because Dr. Walter Willett, who is the chair of nutrition at Harvard, he's one of the most published nutrition scientists of all time, if not the most published. No disagreement there. And so he is coming to the derivation that prostate cancer is linked and it's likely that it's causal. And there's very study- Whoa, whoa, whoa, back up. Half and half. That's no evidence of a causal relationship, James. There's no evidence of a causal relationship. Okay. Dr. Walter Willett is in just- Let's talk about the study. Okay. Rather than appeal to authority. You just said yourself that's a rhetorical fallacy. It's a fallacy unless it's the appeal to valid authority. Because literally, if I want to know about- Are you saying like, so if I want- Let's say we look at mixed martial arts and Chris goes, well, I've never done mixed martial arts, but I think I know more about anthropology, nutrition, like I know more about boxing, kickboxing, jujitsu, and wrestling. So we're talking about the consensus. We're talking about leading experts in their field with thousands of peer reviewed- Well, there is no consensus. There are experts who are- There is consensus. ... very illustrious who would disagree and would look at this study and reach the same exact conclusion that I did. Right. Same with five others. Which is there's no reliable- No. There's no reliable, proven connection between dairy and prostate. You have half studies showing an association, half studies showing no association, not to mention the fact that that's, as you just said, that even if there was a strong correlation that doesn't prove causation. Well, this was a matter of- You said you like this because it included also randomized controlled trials. Yeah. And I'm saying, should we trust Walter Willett, who at the time was the chair of nutrition at Harvard- Let's trust his studies. His studies is what we need to look at. But Chris- We're way off here. No, no. We're way off because it's a- Okay, go ahead. The question was still, there were a lot of inferences made in the film, whether they were intentional or not on your part, that people are hearing, oh, dairy is going to cause prostate cancer. They're going to extend that to cancer. There are other claims in the film made about dairy and metabolic issues and saturated fat metabolic issues. So the operative question that I'm trying to answer is, do the data support that? Not does Walter- Right. Will it think that or any other expert in the film, do the data support that conclusion? Right. I agree. And even in that study, the data don't strongly support that. If you have half studies saying yes, half studies saying no, that's not a clear signal. And it's definitely not evidence of a causal relationship. So having Walter Willett or anyone say there's a strong relationship and we know the mechanism and it's causal, that is- Can I pause here? Can I pause here? Can I pause here? By the study. Can I pause here? Didn't you tell me that two thirds of people have an intolerance towards milk and dairy? Yeah. And I have a study here. Is that what the number is? Two out of three people in the world. Okay. So can I- I'm sorry, because this is actually to your point. So two out of three people have an intolerance towards dairy in the world. And if you're talking about a study that shows 50% of the people in these studies that are consuming dairy, there's a correlation between prostate cancer and dairy. Wouldn't you assume that maybe the same thing that we're talking about with two thirds of people are intolerant to something, they consume this thing that's intolerant, it causes inflammation in the body and that inflammation in the body could possibly be leading to cancer. Correct. No, not correct. Dairy is inversely associated with inflammation. So we can pull out the study- Okay, inversely associated with inflammation. But if people are irritated by dairy, if they have an intolerance to dairy, and you said two thirds of people- Here's what I would suspect there, that if we segmented those people out and said, let's do a study, find out who's intolerant of dairy and find out who isn't, you would see even better results for dairy. Because despite the fact that some people are lactose intolerant, we're still seeing in that meta-analysis that most people- there's no association in most cases and an inverse association in other cases. But this cancer thing- Hold on a second. But this prostate cancer thing is not most. This is 50-50, right? I know. And why is that? 50-50 is disturbing. So imagine what you're saying. You're saying if half of the- okay, well, if dairy gives half people cancer and doesn't give the other half cancer, then I can just dink dairy. Second of all, do you see what Chris just did? That's not what that study- But you see what you're saying? These are epidemiology, James. It's not dairy gives anyone cancer. It's association with these- No, that's not. Your meta-analysis included randomized control trials. This is actually to you. Can I stop this though? Because wouldn't- if someone's intolerant of something, that means your body is irritated by it, means it causes some sort of disturbance, right? Whether it's inflammation or gastrointestinal disorder, you start farting and that's what happens when people are lactose intolerant, right? That irritates the body. Wouldn't there be- wouldn't you assume that something your body is intolerant to would possibly be the cause of disruption or disease? Certainly could be. Right. So now if you're looking at two-thirds of the population are intolerant to dairy- But why would that cause prostate cancer and no other cancers? I don't know. That doesn't make sense. Well, it's because it's called- That's why it's because that's why it- when you see that kind of thing in the data, it's a red flag because there's no logical explanation for why it would cause prostate cancer but no other cancers. Can you start to think about why is there more of an association there with that? Jamie, follow up, but just Google dairy products and inflammation review of the clinical evidence. This is a review, systematic review of 52 clinical trials and they found that dairy products were inversely associated with inflammatory markers, which means that people who consumed dairy actually had lower levels of inflammatory markers. So the hypothesis that dairy is inflammatory and that's why it's causing cancer doesn't seem to hold up in the literature. So, can I just say- Go ahead. So first of all, you know, there's- there might be studies he can bring up. I'm not even a nutrition scientist. I'm like a combatives trainer, right? And so you also said that you're not an expert in nutrition. And so what we have to believe today is that Chris really is- it is about the meta-analyses, but it's about meta-analyses. It's about the totality of taking into account all the evidence, not just one meta-analysis or a meta-analysis of a meta-analyses, but all of the data. And so what you're asking people to believe is that you are better at interpreting the data than people that are experts in their field. There are many experts who would agree with me. You just didn't choose to interview them in the film. No, actually we did interview some that I can tell you about in a second on the other side and I'll tell you why we didn't include them. But you are asking people, I would understand it if suddenly Chris has figured out this new travor diet that he figures out something about nutrition, that he's better than the consent- he knows more about the consensus and more about the majority of leading experts, but to believe that Chris knows more about anthropology, urology, heart disease, new- Why include anthropology? Because- Because that's what you tried to do with anthropology in the film. And successfully because the majority of anthropologists agree with what I said. You chose probably one of the few that would agree with the idea that humans primarily ate a plant- exclusively plant-based diet for- Performance. For most of human evolution. We can go into that again. I'm actually representing the consensus viewpoint in anthropology, James. No, you're actually not. You'll be hard- you'll be hard- pressed to find a consensus group of experts that agree with that idea. I'm not. It was not. It was not. To find a consensus group of experts that agree with that idea.