A study linked increased red meat intake and high rates of early-onset morbidity following dietary testing in several US states for more than 16 years. The study showed surprising results for white meat.
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Eating more red meat is linked to an increased risk of death from eight common diseases, including cancer, diabetes and heart disease, as well as "all other causes" of death, a recent US study found.
Researchers examined data on 537,000 adults between the ages of 50 and 71 and found that people who consumed red meat in the largest amounts were 26 percent more likely to die from a variety of causes compared to those who ate less.
But those who ate the highest amounts of white meat, including poultry and fish, were 25 percent less likely to die from all causes during the study period than those who ate less, the researchers reported in the journal BMG.
"Our findings confirm previous reports of links between red meat and early death, which are also large enough to show similar associations with nine different causes of death," said lead author Arash Etmendi of the National Cancer Institute.
"We also found that for the same total meat consumption, people who said they followed a system with a higher proportion of white meat had lower rates of premature death," Etemadi said in an e-mail. To develop the study, researchers followed the health and dietary habits of people from six US states and two urban areas for more than 16 years.
They analyzed survey data on total meat consumption as well as consumption of processed red meat and unprocessed meat and white meat. Red meat included beef, mutton and pork while white meat included turkeys, turkeys and fish