In 2015, the World Health Organization warned that the consumption of red meat can cause cancer of various types and accelerate premature death. A recent study continues to confirm the data presented for years, ensuring that c omer only two sausages week increases risk of cardiovascular disease and premature death. So get ready for barbecue season and set your menu before putting your health at risk.
The team, led by experts from McMaster University and Hamilton Health Sciences in Canada, followed the diets and health outcomes of 134,297 people from 21 countries on five continents, including Brazil, Argentina, Canada, Sweden and China.
How much red meat can you eat?
They found a 46 percent higher risk of major cardiovascular disease events, such as heart disease and stroke, as well as a 51 percent higher risk of death among those who ate at least 150 g bouquets per week of processed meat, compared with those who did not consume processed meat.
Assuming 75 grams is a single sausage, this equates to two sausages per week, but the risk applies to any form of processed meat , experts warn. That is, those that have been preserved smoked or salty, cured or adding chemical preservatives.
Consuming processed meats, such as hot dogs, ham, pate, corned beef, smoked meat, salami and cured bacon, should be avoided entirely, according to the American Society for Nutrition, which published the study.
The research, published earlier this month, has already revealed that a single slice of bacon a day increases the risk of getting dementia by 44 percent . Eating a lot of processed meat is also known to increase the risk of bowel cancer .
Furthermore, the study has shown that processed meat also cause cardiovascular disease, which is a general term for conditions affecting the heart or blood vessels, including blood pressure, stroke and vascular dementia. All the different types of cardiovascular disease combined make it the leading cause of death globally, claiming an estimated 17.9 million lives each year, according to the WHO.
” We found an adverse association between processed meat intake and health outcomes, ” say the researchers in their new article, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. ” These findings may indicate that limiting processed meat intake should be encouraged .”
Is there a cancer risk in unprocessed meats?
In contrast, the consumption of raw red meat and raw poultry was not found to be associated with mortality or major cardiovascular disease events.
The amounts of preservatives and food additives in processed and unprocessed meats differ markedly, which may partly explain their different health effects, according to the researchers.
” The totality of available data indicates that consuming a modest amount of raw meat as part of a healthy dietary pattern is unlikely to be harmful, ” said study co-author Dr. Mahshid Dehghan of McMaster University, Canada. .
Until now, the evidence for an association between meat intake and cardiovascular disease has been inconsistent.
” Therefore, we wanted to better understand the associations between raw red meat, poultry and processed meat intake with major cardiovascular disease events and mortality, ” said study author Dr. Romaina Iqbal.
To learn more, the researchers worked with data from the Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiological (PURE) study, a long-term study launched in 2003 by Dr. Salim Yusuf, Director of the Population Health Research Institute, Canada.
The PURE study is the first multinational study to provide information on the association between the intake of processed and unprocessed meat with health outcomes in low-, middle- and high-income countries.
The dietary habits of the participants were recorded using food frequency questionnaires, while data on their mortality and major cardiovascular disease events were also collected. After following the participants for nearly a decade, there were 6,976 cardiovascular disease events and 7,789 deaths.
Upon completing their analysis, the study authors ” found no significant associations between raw red meat and poultry intake with mortality or major cardiovascular disease .” On the contrary, the intake of processed meat was associated with higher risks of total mortality and cardiovascular disease.
A limitation of the study was that the dietary intake was self-reported, meaning that any inaccuracies may have led to random errors that could have distorted the results.
