Study: Red meat caused eight diseases

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Eating more red meat is linked to an increased risk of death from eight common diseases, including cancer, diabetes, heart disease and all other causes of death, a recent US study found.

Researchers examined data on 537,000 adults between the ages of 50 and 71 and found that people who consumed red meat in the largest amounts were 26 percent more likely to die from a variety of causes compared to those who ate less.

But people who ate the largest amounts of white meat, including poultry and fish, were 25 percent less likely to die from all causes during the study period than those who ate less, the researchers said in the BMG journal.

"Our findings confirm earlier reports of links between red meat and premature death, which are also large enough to show similar associations with nine different causes of death," said lead author Arash Etmendi of the National Cancer Institute.

"We also found that for the same total meat consumption, people who said they followed a system with a higher proportion of white meat had lower rates of premature death," he said.

To develop the study, researchers followed the health and dietary habits of people from six US states and two urban areas for more than 16 years. They analyzed survey data on total meat consumption as well as consumption of processed red meat and unprocessed meat and white meat. Red meat included beef, mutton and pork, while white meat included turkeys, turkeys and fish.