Processed red meat may boost diabetes risk in women
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By david liu, Ph.D.
Friday Nov 25, 2011 (foodconsumer.org) -- Eating too much processed red meat or redmeat may boost risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus, a study in the Nov 18, 2011 issue of Diabetes Care suggests.
Women eating 5 or more servings of processed red meat per week were 30 percent more likely to be diagnosed with type 2 diabetes mellitus, compared to those who had less than one serving per week.
M. Lajous and colleagues from Harvard School of Public Health conducted the prospective study of 66,118 disease-free French women and found the association.
For the study, the researchers followed the subjects from 1993 through 2007 during which period, 1,369 cases of incident diabetes were identified.
The results of the study were adjusted for a range of factors including smoking, body mass index, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, physical activity, history of diabetes, menopausal status, hormone replacement therapy, use of alcohol, intake of calories, n-3 fatty acids, carbohydrates, coffee, dietary fiber, and fruit and vegetables.
Many previous studies have found similar associations.
A. Pan and colleagues of Harvard School of Public Health reported a similar study in the Oct 2011 issue of American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, which suggests that eating 50 grams of processed red meat per day may increased the risk for type 2 diabetes mellitus by 51 percent.
Unlike Lajous' study, which did not find any association between eating unprocessed red meat with the diabetes risk, Pan's study found eating 100 grams of unprocessed red meat per day was also associated with a 19 percent increased risk.
For their study, Pan et al. followed 37,083 men in the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (1986-2006), 79,570 women in the Nurses' Health Study I (1980-2008), and 87,504 women in the Nurses' Health Study II (1991-2005).
The good news is that replacing one serving of red meat with one serving of nuts, low-fat dairy and whole grain was correlated with a 16-35 percent reduced risk f or type 2 diabetes.
These studies did not mean to explain why eating processed meat increases risk of diabetes. After all, these studies did not establish a causal relation, that is, it remains unknown whether eating processed red meat indeed may increase risk of diabetes mellitus even though the possibility may not be excluded either.
What is type 2 diabetes?
Diabetes mellitus type 2 is a condition in which a person could not effectively control his blood sugar. The disease is believed to affect about 20 million Americans and it can lead to a number of serious complications.
What is red meat?
Red meat typically refers to beef, pork, and sheep meat. The United States Department of Agriculture defines all meats from live stocks as red meat because they contain high levels of myoglobin. Only fish and chicken are not considered red meat.
Photo credit: wikipedia
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