Red Meat Linked To Early Mortality Rates, Especially In Processed Products
Researchers from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) have been studying the effects of red meat eating on the human body and they believe they have found an associated risk of total, cardiov
Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) has found a link between red meat consumption and an increased risk of total, cardiovascular, and cancer mortality.
Published in the Marc 12, 2012 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine lead author An Pan notes:
“Our study adds more evidence to the health risks of eating high amounts of red meat, which has been associated with type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, and certain cancers in other studies.”
To test their theory the researchers observed 37,698 men for up to 22 years and 83,6544 women from the Nurses’ Health Study for up to 28 years. Every four years diets were assessed through questionnaires.
During the study 23,926 deaths were recorded of which 5,910 people had CVD and 9,464 died from cancer related illnesses. In those cases the consumption of processed red meat was associated with increased mortality risk. Researchers found that even one daily serving of unprocessed red meat was associated with a 13% increased risk of mortality while a daily serving of unprocessed red meat was associated with a 20% increased risk.
Cardiovascular mortality was the highest with unprocessed meat accounting for an 18% increase and processed meat accounting for a 21% increase. Cancer mortality was affected the same way with 10% and 16% results.
Processed meat statistics are higher because those meats tend to include various ingredients that have already been linked to cardiovascular disease, cancer and other ailments. Among the worst of those ingredients are heme iron, saturated fat, sodium, nitrites and carcinogens.
One positive did come out of the study, researchers found that substituting other healthy protein sources such as fish, poultry and nuts for your red meat diet can actually lower the risk of early mortality.
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