At this point, it can be easy to ignore headlines about the latest studies claiming that a particular food is ‘bad’ for you – or vice versa though. canonized as a ‘superfood’. Most research articles that demonize a certain type of food usually follow a pattern: identifying a specific condition that everyone is afraid of,existing sets of self-reported data (courtesy of a biobank or other long-term observational study), which identify a possible link between the food concerned and the disease, and conclude by pointing out that correlation is not always the same cause, and is encouraging people on adopt healthier eating habits regardless.
Well, another of those studies was published today, and it addresses the classic question of whether meat is eaten – especially that meat it’s high processed – may increase our risk of dementia.
What this study found
The latest research on the hot dog brain connection comes from the University of Leeds Nutrition Epidemiology Group in the United Kingdom, and is today in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
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Using data collected between 2006 and 2010 from nearly 500,000 people aged 40 to 69 who are part of the British Biobank, the researchers looked at whether there was a possible link between meat consumption and the development of dementia.
While this is not a new research question, the authors believe that they were the first large-scale study of participants over time to investigate a link between specific species and quantities of meat consumption, and the risk of developing the disease.
The researchers found that people who ate 25 g of processed meat a day (the equivalent of about one slice of thickly sliced bacon) had an increased risk of developing dementia.
What to know about the findings
Like the results of similar studies, it should of course be taken with a grain of salt. First, the findings do not provide direct evidence that eating processed meat causes dementia – only that a specific pattern emerged in the data. In addition, this wagons an observational study use of self-reported data from a biobank – not a controlled experiment.
Of the nearly half a million participants, 2,896 cases of dementia were diagnosed during an average of eight years of observation – with men being diagnosed more than women. Based on the other available data via the biobank, researchers also noted that people who developed dementia were generally older, less financially secure, less educated, more likely to smoke, less physically active, more likely to have a stroke, and having family dementia, and more likely to be carriers. of a gene strongly associated with dementia.
Meanwhile, the researchers also noted that the people who ate more processed meat were also male, less trained, smokers, overweight or obese, ate less vegetables and fruits and that they had higher intakes protein and fat (saturated fat included).
The takeaway
Per die main leader of the study, Huifeng Zhang, A PhD student at the University of Leeds’ School of Food Science and Nutrition:
Further confirmation is needed, but the direction of the effect is linked to current guidelines for healthy eating, which suggest that lower intake of unprocessed red meat may be beneficial to health.
In other words, in order to make a claim such as ‘processed meat dementia’, additional, more focused research must take place. And in the meantime, we should probably cut back on eating foods we already knoww we must be enjoy in moderation.