- A large study conducted for almost 10 years finds that eating even small amounts of processed meat, like sausages, can significantly increase the risk of heart disease and death.
- Experts say the high salt, preservative, and fat content of these foods might be why. They encourage people to eat a more plant-based diet while avoiding saturated fat.
- Experts recommend eating all foods, including processed meat, in moderation.
Researchers from McMaster University and Hamilton Health Sciences in Canada have found that eating as little as 6 ounces of processed meat per week could significantly increase the risk of heart disease and death.
Meat is considered processed if it’s been preserved by smoking, salting, curing, or adding preservatives.
That’s the equivalent of eating just two sausages — in a week.
“We found consumption of 150 grams [just over 5 ounces] or more of processed meat per week was associated with a 46 percent higher chance of cardiovascular disease and 51 percent higher chance of death compared with those who did not consume processed meat,” co-author Mahshid Dehghan, PhD, investigator of global health at the David Braley Cardiac, Vascular, and Stroke Research Institute, told Healthline.
The new studyTrusted Source was recently published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
Dehghan and team analyzed the diets and health outcomes of 134,297 people from 21 countries. Researchers tracked their meat consumption and rates of cardiovascular disease.
After following study participants for almost 10 years, the researchers found that eating 150 grams (just over 5 ounces) or more of processed meat a week was associated with an almost 50 percent increased risk of cardiovascular disease and more than 50 percent higher risk of death from all causes than those who ate no processed meat.
“The main limitation [of this study] was that we were unable to include method of cooking for each country,” Dehghan said. “We acknowledge that this limitation might attenuate the association between unprocessed red meat and poultry and health outcomes.”
Surprisingly, researchers discovered that eating moderate levels of unprocessed meat, like beef, pork, or poultry, had a neutral effect on health.
“Observational studies can help determine links and associations but cannot determine causation,” said Lisa K. Diewald, MS, RD, LDN, program manager at the MacDonald Center for Obesity Prevention and Education at Villanova University College of Nursing.
She explained that an observational study that addresses diet and health risk, like this one, typically rely on food frequency questionnaires (FFQ), which may be prone to errors from participants over- or underestimating their consumption.
“However, the large sample size in this study is helpful in mitigating this risk,” Diewald said. “In addition to the large sample size, the study’s staff was well-trained staff in the use of the FFQ, so the results may be looked on as more reliable.