Research debunks meat’s demon status

Eating meat is not as bad for your health as previously thought, new research shows.

A study, published in Nature and approved by the University of Washington in the United States, revisited decades of research. It showed the evidence that eating unprocessed red meat led to colorectal cancer, breast cancer, type 2 diabetes and ischemic heart disease, was weak.

It also found no association between eating unprocessed red meat and ischemic stroke or haemorrhagic stroke.

Previous studies had drawn direct links between eating meat and those diseases and conditions and had led organisations like the World Health Organisation, the World Cancer Research Fund and the EAT-Lancet Commission to recommend limiting red meat intake.

The study said the problem with older research was that people were grouped into categories based on how much red meat they ate.

Their health conditions were then linked to that.

Nutritionist Mikki Williden, who completed a PhD in how health affected productivity, said research did not consider that people who ate too much meat often had other behaviours that led to bad health.

Consumers who ate too much red meat often ate it with a white bread bun, and a soda on the side. They often had poor diets and did not consume fruit and vegetables, were less likely to do physical activity, and often smoked, Williden said.

This meant research drew association between one action and another, but did not consider other factors that were important to a person’s health.

Williden said protein was a good vehicle for minerals and vitamins that many people were low in.

It was not helpful to tell a population to eat less meat if they were already deficient in certain nutrients, she said.

When meat was not an option, it was often replaced with ultra processed food, Williden said.

How risk was portrayed could be misinterpreted. For example, when a risk was shown as increasing by 100% because of a certain habit, it could merely be that a risk had increased from 0.1% to 0.2%, she said.

Previous studies had concluded that the risk of disease increased as intake of meat increased. This was debunked by this latest study that found it to be untrue.

The study gave risk of disease a one- to five-star rating. A onestar indicated no evidence of association and five stars gave a very strong evidence of association. There was some evidence that eating red meat increased the risk of disease, but none of the risk merited a more than two-star rating that showed a weak evidence of association.

The ratings were designed so consumers and policymakers had a way to understand the strength of evidence about a risk in a way that was comparable.

The study used data from years of previous research. One involved 500,000 people and another used research spanning 32 years.

The study also used a burden of proof risk function that was developed by scientists. Exposure to risks throughout life resulted in a wide variety of outcomes.

The risk function was developed because existing ways to communicate risk was often confusing and were also often subjective, researchers said.