Surprising News About Red Meat

This article originally appeared on The Epoch Times and was republished with permission.

Guest post by Amie Dahnke

A new study bucks recent trends in health research that say people who eat a lot of red or processed meat face an increased risk of heart disease.

A research team looked at UK Biobank data from over 1.8 million people: roughly 460,000 who ate processed meat, pork, beef, and mutton, respectively. Anyone with a history of cardiovascular disease was omitted from the study.

The team found that eating red or processed meat was not linked to a higher risk of cardiovascular disease. All odds ratios (ORs) of a person developing cardiovascular disease, coronary artery disease, stroke, heart failure, or atrial fibrillation were insignificant.

An odds ratio of 1.00 means there is no significant difference between eating meat, for instance, or not eating meat. An OR higher than 1.00 indicates the person is more at risk, and an OR below 1.00 means one is less at risk or that the intervention has a protective effect.

The link between beef intake and heart disease was even lower, with an OR of 0.7 for developing cardiovascular disease. Beef eaters were also at low risk for developing atrial fibrillation (OR 0.85) and heart failure (OR 0.80) but at a higher risk of experiencing stroke (OR 1.29).

Individuals who ate pork were at higher risk of developing heart failure (OR 1.71), stroke (OR 1.15), and coronary artery disease (OR 1.25). Despite these findings, the researchers still labelled the outcomes insignificant in terms of causality, but did not offer .

Mutton intake did not reveal any health risks associated with heart disease either, the research team found. Much like processed meat, mutton had insignificant OR outcomes for risk of cardiovascular disease, coronary artery disease, stroke, heart failure, or atrial fibrillation.

“This result differs from those of previous observational studies,” the research team wrote.

“Over the past decade, several cross-sectional and prospective studies have investigated the relationship between red and processed meat consumption and [cardiovascular disease]. The conclusions drawn from the available data are inconsistent.”

However, the researchers said more research to confirm their findings is warranted.

Research has flip-flopped over the years on whether red meat consumption damages the heart. The American Heart Association cites a 2022 study that determined that microbes left in the gut after eating red meat contribute to cardiovascular disease.

A 2023 study published in Food Science & Nutrition suggested that total meat consumption, not necessarily the type of meat or its level of saturated fat, is what affects health health.

Read the full story at The Epoch Times.