Much as I hate to admit it.
A new study involving half a million people has found that eating just 4 ounces of red meat or cold cuts each day makes middle-aged and elderly folks 30% more likely to die within a decade. Daily doses of poultry and fish actually decrease your chances of death in that time.
You probably don’t need to be told that your once-a-day Whopper habit isn’t good for you, but this research is the most conclusive study we have that says red meat is likely to shorten your life.
The Washington Post reports:
“The uniqueness of this study is its size and length of follow-up,” said Barry M. Popkin, a professor of global nutrition at the University of North Carolina, who wrote an editorial accompanying the study. “This is a slam-dunk to say that, ‘Yes, indeed, if people want to be healthy and live longer, consume less red and processed meat.’ ”
There are many explanations for how red meat might be unhealthy: Cooking red meat generates cancer-causing compounds; red meat is also high in saturated fat, which has been associated with breast and colorectal cancer; and meat is high in iron, also believed to promote cancer. People who eat red meat are more likely to have high blood pressure and cholesterol, which increases the risk of heart disease. Processed meats contain substances known as nitrosamines, which have been linked to cancer.
Although pork is often promoted as “white meat,” it is believed to increase the risk of cancer because of its iron content, Sinha said.
The news wasn’t all bad for beef-lovers though: the study also found that cutting red meat out of your diet entirely wasn’t much better than eating it just two or three times a week.
Thanks, Dawn!
Image via nickop.
7 responses so far ↓
1 Steph // Mar 24, 2009 at 11:45 am
HAHA!!
I knew it!
Actually I saw this on the news yesterday, and Jojo had a great time throwing this “new” information in my face.
2 Tico // Mar 24, 2009 at 12:03 pm
I don’t believe it. What’s more, I don’t care. If steak & bacon are bad for you, well, I guess I’ll just die younger.
3 Jen B // Mar 24, 2009 at 12:11 pm
I hate to get all “grad student” on you, but this is a correlation relationship, not a causal one. As far as I can see, they haven’t proved that it is because of the red meat that these people like less long, one that the people who eat more red meat are also the people who live less long. There may be other things that most people who eat red meat do that shortens their life-spans: like eating fries :)
4 mark // Mar 24, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Nothing wrong with being grad-studenty! But apparently they took other potentially life-shortening variables into account:
5 B // Mar 26, 2009 at 9:19 am
Haha! I think studies like this come out every couple of years.
I’m inclined to agree with Jen B’s comment about correlation vs. causation. I’ll have to read the article to give a proper response. Is there a reference for it?
Plus vegetarians shouldn’t get ready to celebrate too quickly:
1. Do vegetarians eat chicken?
2. Do vegetarians eat fish? Fish has HUGE benefits for your health. I don’t know much about vegetarianism, but I would presums of steak is a no-no then fish would have to be too. (But that would presume that vegetarianism, on “ethical/moral” grounds made sense.)
3. Vegetarians are at risk for certain long-term, unpleasant health conditions.
6 mark // Mar 26, 2009 at 9:48 am
The reference is the Washington Post. And this could well be a correlation rather than a causation, but I’ve known lots of vegetarians who smoke, drink and stuff down the french fries with the best of them. : )
7 maya // Apr 5, 2009 at 1:35 am
ahoy! i’m a get in on this research grad student business :D (though, i would also need to see the source article in order to really dig in deep in terms of methods and conclusions here).
1) in terms of correlation/causation: indeed this study does not provide conclusive causal evidence. it does, however, provide much needed predictive longitudinal data which can direct future inquiry into the experimental domain. furthermore, since they accounted for other predictors of longevity/well-being, it allows for the researcher to isolate and examine the unique amount of variance (in this case, differences in longevity) accounted for by the meat eating factor. This study is additionally useful since they isolated the different types of meat eaten rather than generalize based on one animal source/product.
2) the unique benefits of fish relative to other animal foods are the omega fatty acids, which can be found in food sources such as flax seeds. i’m not too sure about the unique compounds in chicken. Something general to note is that if one’s diet is balanced and rich in essential nutrients, then even if one does not eat chicken or fish, one is still going to lead a good, long, healthy life.
3) in terms of the purported health problems associated with vegetarianism: Every diet comes with health risks if one is not attentive to doing a proper job of eating well. so we all have vegetarian and omnivore friends who have shrivelled from malnutrition, or who have beamed with a bill of health. In the present case of meat consumption, the health risks may go above and beyond the variable of the overall balance in diet regardless of the surrounding healthful foods… though I do not know if the researchers distinguished between fast food and the less synthetic home-made variety. This would likely reveal another distinction in the data.
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