Both surviving and thriving are acts of living, and living naturally contributes to aging. Being alive is therefore slowly toxic in the same way that driving a car wears out the car. Hypertrophy (meaning cellular growth and generally referring to muscle) depends on factors that accelerate both aging and cancer risk, including mTOR and IGF-1. Maximum hypertrophy and longevity are therefore at odds.

In a 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis published in Nutrition and Health, all the research done to date (taken together) shows that the carnivore diet increases hypertrophy significantly less than it accelerates the rate of aging, metabolic disease, and cancer. In other words, the carnivore diet increases mortality more than it does muscle. The new research points out that its systematic review of scientific findings is important because enthusiastic supporters of the carnivore diet only use the small, limited research findings that support their belief system rather than looking at the big picture:

The paper states (quote) “The need for such a systematic review is high as health enthusiasts incorrectly often quote single data points from papers showing a single benefit from consuming meat …[but]… A deep analysis [shows] clearly that meat is great for hypertrophy, short term nutrition, short term energy requirements, but a very poor choice when it comes to healthy aging and longevity.”

In other words, the sum total of research shows clearly the carnivore diet pays a heavy cost in health span for a small advantage in gaining muscle. This information will not matter to those who deep down only care about their inner drive for aggressive talk on muscularity and eating animals. For those who fall into that category, you need not read or listen any further either here or in the original paper summarizing the research on this topic since belief is an extension of thought whereas dogma eliminates thought.

For those looking to live their lives by the principles of thoughtful common sense, which includes paying attention to general facts as opposed to personal ones that are out of touch with reality, it is worth spending a minute to look at the arguments made by carnivore advocates. The goal is not to ignore their partial facts since there is no reason to assume that all or even most of the carnivore arguments are either true or false until we have made a careful consideration. Unfortunately for carnivore advocates, their arguments fall apart quickly, so our consideration won’t take very long…

Carnivore advocates cite the eating patterns of modern-day and past hunter-gatherers although neither of these actually support their argument: First, the Hadza in Africa eat mostly fruits and tubers with meat averaging only one quarter of their food because of a high variability in hunt success and game availability through the year. Second, the Inuit in the Arctic mostly eat meat but die on average 15 years earlier than Canadians in part due to higher circulatory and metabolic disease. And third, fire pits over 100,000 years old in Africa show residues of tubers more than meat, similar to the eating pattern of the Hadza today and consistent with our ancient genetics for starch digestion.

Carnivore advocates also claim that meat has all the nutrients we need while ignoring (or unaware of the fact) that the body lowers its metabolic rate to reduce its needs when its needs are not met, giving the false impression of sufficient nutrients to thrive when in reality it is only sufficient to survive.

Ignorance, meaning the lack of knowledge or awareness, cannot be overcome by simply increasing the aggressive assertiveness of carnivore half-truths while sighting only the research that backs up a belief to which the aggressor is emotionally attached. We call this “bullying.” Someone’s personal truth is what works best for that individual. But when personal truth is broadcast to others as general truth despite its being in opposition to comprehensive research findings, this converts personal truth to damaging rhetoric. It is not fair to those being damaged to have misleading uninformed information fed to them when they are already struggling with their nutrition to begin with.

There is tremendous power in general truth. And it can take courage to discover or even to pay attention to that truth against a backdrop of carnival barkers proclaiming the benefits of this or that belief system as if our natural thoughtful common sense is not enough to replace processed food with natural food to get the vast majority of health benefits traditional and longest-lived societies enjoy.

The metabolic dilemma created by processed food has led to a series of diets replacing carbs with fats (such as keto), protein (which is not keto), or fasting, which is also being barked as at a carnival despite comprehensive research clearly showing it eats away muscle as fast as low carb and Ozempic weight loss because of the cortisol release triggered by the brain. Unfortunately, these diets have followers who care more about feeling correct than being correct, as if the benefits of their diets exceed healthy eating when they do not.

To believe in the carnivore diet you must ignore or contort the facts of actual paleolithic eating patterns, of modern-day hunter-gatherer patterns low in meat (in Africa, South America, and Australia), and the negative health effects seen when they are high in meat (in the Arctic). Added to this is the reality that the carnivore diet is harmful to long-term health in the wild, which makes it inevitably even more toxic to long-term health in modern society wherein the quality of foods is significantly less than it is in the wild.

What our grandparents told us decades ago and Hippocrates told us thousands of years ago still hold true: health comes from moderate balance in both our lives and on our plates. Reengage in your life using thoughtful common sense to leave behind the cacophony of carnival barkers.