Red meat consumption has been linked to diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and several types of cancer (breast, colorectal, stomach, bladder, prostate, and lymphoma). There are plausible mechanisms: meat is a source of carcinogens, iron that may increase oxidative damage, and saturated fat. But correlation and plausibility are not enough to establish causation. Is red meat really dangerous? If so, how great is the risk? A couple of recent studies have tried to shed light on these questions, but they have raised more questions than they have answered.
A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
A new study in Circulation, “Red and Processed Meat Consumption and Risk of Incident Coronary Heart Disease, Stroke, and Diabetes Mellitus. A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis,” by Micha, Wallace and Mozaffarian, is a systematic review of the literature. It analyzed 17 prospective cohort studies and 3 case-control studies, with a total of 1.2 million subjects. As far as I can judge, it appears to be a well-done systematic review with excellent methodology and multiple precautions. They even looked for things like publication bias (which they did not find).
They found that the consumption of processed meats, but not red meats, is associated with a higher incidence of coronary heart disease and diabetes. (Processed meats include bacon, sausage, ham, hot dogs, salami, luncheon meat and other cured meats.) The increased risk per 50 gram serving of processed meats per day was 42% for heart disease and 19% for diabetes. Unprocessed red meats were not associated with CHD and were associated with a nonsignificant trend towards higher risk of diabetes. They found no association with stroke, but this was based only on 3 studies.