The findings of a recent global study led by scientists from Hamilton found a link between a higher risk of cardiovascular disease and eating processed meat. However, the same study did not find the same association with unprocessed red meat or poultry.
The information comes from the diets and health results of 1,34,297 people from 21 countries across five continents, which were tracked by researchers for data on meat consumption and cardiovascular disease.
After following the participants for almost a decade, the researchers found that consuming 150 grams or more of processed meat per week was associated with a 46 percent higher risk of cardiovascular disease and a 51 percent higher risk of death than those who did not eat meat.
However, the researchers also found that moderate levels of consumption of unprocessed meat have a neutral effect on health.
“Evidence of a link between meat intake and cardiovascular disease is contradictory. We therefore wanted to better understand the link between intake of unprocessed red meat, poultry and processed meat with major cardiovascular diseases and deaths,” Romaina Iqbal said first. author of the study and an associate professor at Aga Khan University in Karachi, Pakistan.
“The total available data suggest that consuming a modest amount of unprocessed meat as part of a healthy diet is unlikely to be harmful,” said Mahshid Dehghan, a researcher at the Population Health Research Institute (PHRI) at McMaster. University and Hamilton, said. Health Sciences.
The Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology (PURE) study was launched in 2003 and is the first multinational study to provide information on the link between unprocessed and processed meat intakes with health outcomes from low-, middle-, and high-income countries.
“The PURE study examines significantly more diverse populations and broad dietary patterns, enabling us to provide new evidence distinguishing between the effects of processed and unprocessed meat,” said senior author Salim Yusuf, executive director of PHRI.
The participants’ eating habits were recorded using food frequency questionnaires, while data were also collected on their deaths and the major events in the cardiovascular disease. This has enabled researchers to determine the link between meat consumption patterns and cardiovascular disease and mortality.
The authors believe that additional research may improve the current understanding of the relationship between meat consumption and health outcomes. For example, it is unclear which study participants ate with a lower meat intake instead of meat, and whether the quality of the food differs between countries.
Non-meat substitutes may have implications in the further interpretation of the relationship between meat consumption and health outcomes. Nevertheless, the authors of the study believe that their findings ‘indicate that the intake of processed meat should be encouraged’.
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This story was published by a wire agency without modifying the text. Only the heading has been changed.