Red meat claims queried
A UNIVERSITY of Otago academic disagrees with a claim by international researchers that few health benefits would result from reducing consumption of red and processed meat.
‘‘It’s the headline message that’s totally confusing,’’ Prof
Jim Mann said this week.
‘‘Processed meat has been repeatedly shown to be carcinogenic.’’
Eating red meat had also long been linked with heart disease, and to the consumption of accompanying saturated fat, he said.
The researchers, from Canada, Spain and Poland, reviewed studies on links between meat consumption and human health.
In controlled trials, they could not find a statistically significant association between meat consumption and the risk of heart disease, diabetes, or cancer.
Based on their reviews, a panel of 14 international specialists recommended that most adults should keep eating their present levels of red and processed meat — estimated at three to four times a week in North America and New Zealand.
The findings, published in Annals of Internal Medicine, were ‘‘potentially unhelpful and could be misleading’’, Prof Mann said.
He queried the ‘‘weak recommendations’’, based on ‘‘low certainty’’ evidence, arising from the reviews, and said most existing dietary guidelines recommended cutting down on those meats.
Based on these reviews, which include some Australian and New Zealand data, an accompanying guideline recommends most adults should continue to eat their current levels of red and processed meat, the researchers said, in a summary by the Science Media Centre.
Prof Mann, who is codirector of the university’s Edgar Diabetes and Obesity Research Centre and director of the Healthier Lives National Science Challenge, said the existing recommendations to limit intake of red meat, for health reasons, were mainly based on the relationship between red meat and colorectal cancer.
Prof Nick Wilson, of Otago University’s Wellington campus, said the new findings lacked ‘‘a critical wider context’’, given there was ‘‘an urgent need for a global shift to more plantbased diets for planetary health reasons’’.