Eating more red meat and poultry increases the risk of nine chronic diseases! Oxford University study

Recently, a study based on 470,000 people by Oxford University found that regular consumption of beef, mutton, pork and poultry is associated with a higher risk of nine diseases including diabetes, coronary heart disease and pneumonia.

In the study, people who ate meat ≥ 3 times a week were more likely to smoke, drink, and be overweight/obese than those who did not eat meat. They also tended to eat less fruits, vegetables, and fish. The meat in the study mainly included unprocessed red meat (beef, lamb, pork), poultry, and processed meat.
After correcting the above factors, the study found that no matter what type of meat food, whether processed or unprocessed, increases the risk of coronary heart disease, pneumonia, gastrointestinal diverticular disease, colon polyps and diabetes to varying degrees. Eating 70 grams of red meat and processed meat every day increases the risk of coronary heart disease by 15% and the risk of diabetes by 30%. The risk of pneumonia increases by 31%, diverticular disease increases by 19%, and the risk of colon polyps increases by 10%. Eating 30 grams of poultry meat every day increases the risk of gastroesophageal reflux disease by 17% and the risk of diabetes by 14%. Similarly, people who eat more poultry meat also have an increased risk of gastritis and duodenitis, diverticular disease, and gallbladder disease.

However, after correcting for body mass index, the correlation between meat consumption and the risk of most diseases weakens, indicating that obesity/overweight is also related to these diseases. The study analyzed data from 475,000 adults in the UK Biobank database, with an average follow-up of 8 years. Last year, an analysis of 420,000 people in the UK Biobank database published in the European Heart Journal showed that compared with eating red meat, eating fish can reduce the risk of coronary heart disease, myocardial infarction, stroke, heart failure, and cardiovascular disease; eating a vegetarian diet can also reduce the overall risk of cardiovascular disease.
The Chinese Guidelines for Preventing Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases through Healthy Lifestyles point out that an unreasonable diet is one of the important risk factors for cardiovascular and metabolic disease deaths and disease burden in my country. In 2017, about 2.63 million cardiovascular deaths in my country were attributed to dietary factors, an increase of 38% from 2007.

The Global Burden of Disease study shows that in 2017, approximately 10 million people worldwide died from cardiovascular disease each year due to unhealthy diet, of which 3.8 million deaths were due to insufficient intake of vegetables and fruits, 1.4 million deaths were due to insufficient intake of seafood, and 150,000 deaths were related to excessive intake of red and processed meat.

source:
[1]Meat consumption and risk of 25 common conditions: outcome-wide analyses in 475,000 men and women in the UK Biobank study. BMC Med. 2021 Mar 2;19(1):53.[2]Chinese Preventive Medicine Association, Chinese Preventive Medicine Association Heart Disease Prevention and Control Professional Committee, Chinese Medical Association Diabetes Branch, etc. Chinese Healthy Lifestyle Guidelines for Preventing Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases. Chinese Journal of Circulation, 2020, 35: 209-230. DOI: 10.3969/j.issn.1000-3614.2020.03.001.[3]Vegetarians, fish, poultry, and meat-eaters: who has higher risk of cardiovascular disease incidence and mortality? A prospective study from UK Biobank. Eur Heart J, 14 December 2020.
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