Is red meat bad for you?
British consumption of red meat drops by 17% in the last decade.
Last Friday a few publications announced that the British consumption of red meat had reduced by 17% in the last decade.
The Guardian wrote:
Meat production is a major contributor to global heating and land degradation, while eating lots of red and processed meat has been linked to a greater risk of developing cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancer.
For these reasons, the government-commissioned national food strategy for England recently recommended that people try to cut their meat consumption by about 30% within the next decade.
For the full article read here.
Before I start this blog, I want to make clear that this blog post is not referring to the ethical practices of meat consumption, nor is it considering the environmental factors. This blog’s only purpose is to look at the studies of meat consumption in relation to nutrition and health and whether there is a correlation between heart disease, diabetes and cancer.
My personal views on the ethical practices of meat consumption are irrelevant, nor will I discuss it in this blog.
Here’s what we’ll cover in this blog post:
In 2012 a research paper published in The American Medical Association claimed there was a correlation between red meat consumption and heart disease, diabetes and cancer.
Another paper in 2012 was published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition which concluded that there was not enough evidence to suggest that red meat does cause health concerns.
Because of the conflicting research around this topic, I thought it might be interesting to discuss the gaps in the research and why they may have resulted in conflicting statistics.
In this post, I’ll be covering the various research papers and their conclusions, in an effort to help you make more informed dietary choices around your red meat consumption.
When red meat consumption has a clear association with coronary heart disease, cancer and mortality.
In 2012, The American Medical Association published a research paper that concluded that red meat consumption is correlated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease and cancer, and that substituting red meat with other healthier protein options could lead to lower cases of heart disease.
When you look at the statistics, you are immediately under the impression that red meat kills, as that is how the results are presented. However, when you dig in to the body of the paper, you can see how the authors and researchers have highlighted a few of the gaps in the underlying research that could have affected the overall results.
Here’s are some of the covariates they picked up along the way:
The men and women with higher intake of red meat were less likely to exercise and more likely to be smokers, to drink alcohol, and have a higher BMI.
Where there was higher intake of red meat, there was a noticeable association with low intake of whole foods, such as vegetables and fruit.
The study also pointed out that they did not differentiate between red meat and processed meat.
The paper also reported that the association between red meat consumtpion and cancer mortality could be related to the presence of certain compounds, such as N nitroso, a bi-product of cooking meat at high temperatures that has found to be carcinogenic.
The paper finally concluded that by replacing red meat with white meat, an individual could drastically reduce mortality risk.
When red meat consumption isn’t associated with cardiovascular disease and mortality.
Next, let’s look at some research that has resulted in different statistics.
A paper published in 2012 in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, followed Japanese men and women and evaluated whether a moderate consumption of red meat was associated with health risks.
They concluded that a moderate consumption of 100g of red meat was not associated with any health risks for either gender.
Interestingly, this particular research noted that the adverse effects of meat consumption could be related to the high amount of heme iron (which has been associated with type 2 diabetes and increased risk of carotid astherosclerosis), saturated fat and sodium.
They further went on to discuss the potential reasons for a no positive association (i.e. no-correlation) and found that the amino acid make up of the meat could have affected the result. Specific amino acids such as branched chain amino acids (BCAA), promote anabolic affect (muscle building) of cardiac protein and protect the heart from damage.
The researchers finally concluded that a moderate consumption of red meat of up to 100g per day was not associated with increased mortality from heart disease, stroke or total cardiovascular disease among Japanese men and women.
So why the confusing statistics?
The reason why science fascinates me so much is because the research is always trying to find the truth rather than trying to prove what it believes.
In one notable study, some researchers got together to run a meta-analysis (examination of data from a number of independent studies of the same subject, in order to determine overall trends.)
Here’s what they found:
Two studies evaluated red meat intake and its association with stroke and total death caused by stroke, and found the risk was not significant.
Two studies evaluated processed meat intake and stroke found that there was also no significant risk.
Two studies evaluated total meat consumption and total stroke, estimating an increase of 24% higher risk per daily serving.
The differences in the make up of red meat and processed meat meant that approximately 50g of processed meat contained more calories, sodium and nitrites but less protein.
Processed meats were found to contain up to x4 increased levels of sodium, preservatives and nitrites.
The researchers concluded that the consumption of processed meat and not red meat was associated with coronary heart disease and diabetes. However, they pointed out that more research was needed in order to make better policies with clearer recommendations, so that individuals could make informed decisions.
So with all that discussed above, I think it’s fair to say everything in moderation is the healthiest policy. Too much or too little of anything could potentially cause harm, if not physiologically then perhaps mentally.
Are you a meat eater or a meat avoider? What’s your opinion, comment below.
