Red meat ‘raises heart and cancer risk’

Regularly eating red meat – especially the processed variety – dramatically increases the risk of death from heart disease and cancer, a major study has shown.

Each additional serving of processed red meat, equivalent to one hot-dog or two rashers of bacon, raised the chances of dying by a fifth.

Conversely, replacing red meat with fish, poultry, or plant-based protein foods contributed to a longer life.

Nuts were said to reduce the risk of dying by 20 per cent – making a case for swapping roast beef for nut roast.

Data from 121,342 men and women taking part in two large US health and lifestyle investigations were analysed to produce the findings, published in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.

The studies monitored the progress of their participants for more than 20 years and gathered information about diet. In total, scientists documented 23,926 deaths including 5,910 from heart disease and 9,364 from cancer.

A striking association was seen between consumption of red meat and premature death.

Each daily serving of unprocessed red meat, equivalent to a helping of beef, lamb or pork about the size of a deck of cards, raised the risk of death by 13 per cent, while processed meat increased it by 20 per cent.

When deaths were broken down into specific causes, eating any kind of red meat increased the chances of dying from heart disease by 16 per cent and of cancer by 10 per cent.

Processed red meat raised the risk of heart disease and cancer deaths by 21 per cent and 16 per cent respectively.

Cancer prevention charity the World Cancer Research Fund recommends that people avoid processed meat entirely and limit their consumption of red meat to 500 grams a week.