Eating meat ‘raises risk of heart disease, diabetes and pneumonia’
Eating meat regularly increases someone’s risk of developing heart disease, diabetes, pneumonia and other serious illnesses, research has found.
It is already known that intake of red and processed meat heightens the risk of being diagnosed with bowel cancer. But these findings are the first to assess whether meat consumption is linked to any of the 25 non-cancerous illnesses that most commonly lead to people being admitted to hospital in the UK.
The academics from Oxford University who published the study found that consumption of red meat, processed meat and poultry meat such as chicken and turkey, either alone or together, at least three times a week was linked to a greater risk of nine different illnesses.
Their results add to the growing evidence from researchers and the World Health Organization that eating too much meat, especially red and processed meat, can damage health.
The findings, published in the journal BMC Medicine, are based on analysis of the health records of 474,985 middle-aged Britons. The researchers examined details provided about their diets with information from their medical records about hospital admissions and also mortality data for an average of eight years.
The study concluded: “On average, participants who reported consuming meat regularly (three or more times per week) had more adverse health behaviours and characteristics than participants who consumed meat less regularly.
“Higher consumption of unprocessed red and processed meat combined was associated with higher risks of ischaemic heart disease, pneumonia, diverticular disease, colon polyps and diabetes, and higher consumption of poultry meat was associated with higher risks of gastro-oesophageal reflux disease, gastritis and duodenitis, diverticular disease, gallbladder disease and diabetes.”
The academics, led by Dr Keren Papier from the university’s Nuffield department of population health, found that every 70 grams of unprocessed red meat and processed meat that someone consumed daily raised their risk of heart disease by 15% and of diabetes by 30%.
Those meats may raise the risk of heart disease because they contain saturated fatty acids, which can increase low-density lipoprotein, or “bad” cholesterol, which is known to put people at greater risk of heart problems.
Similarly, every 30 grams of poultry meat eaten daily increased the risk of developing gastro-oesophageal reflux by 17% and of diabetes by 14%, they found.
However, it was mainly meat-eaters who were overweight or obese who were running these risks, it emerged during the study. Most of the increased risks of disease identified were reduced once participants’ body mass index was taken into account.
“Differences in BMI across the categories of meat consumption appear to account for a substantial part of the increased risks,” the article in BMC Medicine says.
Eating meat regularly did reduce the risk of someone suffering from irondeficiency anaemia, though.
“We have long known that unprocessed red meat and processed meat consumption is likely to be carcinogenic and this research is the first to assess the risk of 25 non-cancerous health conditions in relation to meat intake in one study,” said Papier.
Further research was needed into whether the differences in risk she and her team observed reflected “causal relationships [with meat intake] and, if so, the extent to which these diseases could be prevented by decreasing meat consumption”, she added.
Public Health England said that anyone who eats more than 90g of red or processed meat a day should cut down to 70g.
Dr Alison Tedstone, the agency’s chief nutritionist, said: “Globally the evidence suggests that people who eat red and processed meat should limit their intake. While it can form part of a healthy diet, eating too much has been linked to increased risk of developing bowel cancer.” For the sake of their health, people should follow the guidelines for a healthy, balanced diet set out in PHE’s Eatwell Guide, she added.
The Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition first declared in 2010 that eating too much red or processed meat probably increased the risk of bowel cancer.
Prof Robert Pickard, a member of the Food Advisory Board, which responded on behalf of the meat industry, said: “Overall, it is important to think about the balance of foods that make up a varied and healthy diet – plenty of whole grains, fruit and vegetables and limited amounts of foods high in saturated fat, salt and sugar – rather than focusing on one particular food alone. Red meat can form part of a healthier dietary pattern, and is included in the government’s healthy eating model, the Eatwell Guide.”
The US has announced sanctions on seven Russian government officials and 13 Russian and European companies in response to the poisoning of the opposition leader Alexei Navalny, which a US intelligence assessment confirmed to be the work of the FSB.
Senior administration officials described the measures taken, which are also a response to Navalny’s continued imprisonment, as catching up with sanctions imposed on Moscow by the EU in October while the Trump administration had largely turned a blind eye.
The officials said policy towards Russia was now being closely coordinated with European allies, and that more punitive measures would be issued in the coming weeks in response to last year’s Solar Winds cyber-attack, Russian interference in the 2020 election and bounties allegedly offered to Taliban fighters and other extremists for killing US soldiers.
“The tone and substance of our conversation with Russia, and our conversations about Russia, will be very different from what you saw in the previous administration,” one senior official said.
“We are not seeking to escalate, we are not seeking to reset. We are seeking stability and predictability and areas of constructive work with Russia, where it is in our interest to do that.”
The sanctions are being imposed under the 1991 Chemical and Biological Weapons Act, “and other authorities”, and represent an expansion of those already imposed in response to the attack on the former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the UK in 2018.
Among those blacklisted were
Andrei Yarin, the chief of the Kremlin’s domestic policy directorate; Alexander Bortnikov, the director of the Federal Security Service (FSB); and deputy ministers of defense Alexei Krivoruchko and Pavel Popov, among others, according to a statement.
Any property or dealings in the US will be frozen or blocked and foreigners holding transactions with them could also face sanctions.
The commerce department announced a tightening of export controls on items potentially used to make chemical or biological weapons.
Nine Russian, three German and one Swiss company, as well as one government research institute, are being placed on an “entity list” which means US dealings with them would require a license “on presumption of denial”. The names of the companies and the institute were due to be published later on Tuesday.
“As sanctions go, this isn’t going to change any sort of behavior by Putin or force them to all of a sudden release Navalny – I’m highly suspect of that,” said Daniel Tannebaum, a sanctions expert and former compliance officer at the US Treasury’s office of foreign assets control.
But he added: “I’m encouraged by the rhetoric out of the Biden administration that this is the beginning, and not necessarily a reset but the first step to impose sanctions against the Putin regime for a variety of different issues.”