In a new study, researchers found people who eat a small amount of red meat or processed meat have higher death risk.
The finding suggests to protect the health and live longer, it is important to have a healthy diet, which includes high amounts of vegetables and fruits.
The research was conducted by a team from Loma Linda University Health.
It is known that eating high amounts of red meat and processed meat is bad for health, especially for heart health.
Previous research has shown that eating red meat and processed meat is linked to a higher risk of cancer.
The main type of cancer is colorectal cancer, the fourth most commonly diagnosed cancer in the world.
Processed meat, including sausage, ham, dried meat, canned meat, salted meat, and smoked meat, may contain many harmful chemicals that are not present in fresh meat.
However, no study has examined the health effects of eating small amounts of meat.
In the current study, the team filled an important gap left by previous studies.
They examined health data in vegetarians and those who consume meat at low levels. They compared the effect of low levels of red and processed meat intake compared to zero-intake.
More than 7,900 individuals over an 11-year period were examined.
The team focused on the link of low intakes of red and processed meat with all-cause, heart diseases, and cancer mortality.
They found that among those individuals who consumed meat, 90% of them only ate about two ounces or less of red meat per day.
About 2,600 of the reported deaths were due to heart disease, and more than 1,800 were cancer deaths.
The results showed that the total intake of red and processed meat was linked to higher risks of total and heart disease deaths.
But eating processed meat alone was not strongly linked to risk of mortality possibly because very few people eat such meat.
The findings provide evidence that eating red and processed meat may harm health and lifespan.
The study is part of the Adventist Health Study-2 (AHS-2). AHS-2 a prospective cohort study of approximately 96,000 Seventh-day Adventist men and women in the United States and Canada.
The lead author of the current study is Saeed Mastour Alshahrani, a doctoral student at Loma Linda University School of Public Health.
The study is published in Nutrients as part of the Special Issue, Dietary Assessment in Nutritional Epidemiology: Public Health Implications for Promoting Lifelong Health.
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