Meat Consumption Linked with Higher Risk of Developing Type 2 Diabetes
Increased incidence of typed 2 diabetes was associated with higher consumption of processed meat, unprocessed red meat, and poultry.
Consuming higher amounts of processed meat and unprocessed red meat is associated with an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to new research published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology.1 The authors said the findings show that reduced meat consumption could benefit public health.
Meat Consumption Linked with Higher Risk of Developing Type 2 Diabetes / Nirt - stock.adobe.com
Diabetes is a leading cause of death across the world, with around 500 million people living with the disease. It is estimated that over 1 billion people will have diabetes by 2050, highlighting the need for increased public health strategies to control risk factors.2 Previous research has linked red meat with type 2 diabetes development, but other data has contradicted these findings.
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“Previous meta-analysis involved pooling together of already published results from studies on the link between meat consumption and type 2 diabetes, but our analysis examined data from individual participants in each study,” Chunxiao Li, lead author on the study, said in a release.3 “This meant that we could harmonize the key data collected across studies, such as the meat intake information and the development of type 2 diabetes. Using harmonized data also meant we could more easily account for different factors, such as lifestyle or health behaviors, that may affect the association between meat consumption and diabetes.“
A team of investigators from the University of Cambridge conducted a study to investigate the associations of unprocessed red meat, processed meat, and poultry consumption with type 2 diabetes. Data for the meta-analysis was gathered from the InterConnect project, which “aims to optimize the use of individual-participant data by enabling cross-cohort analyses without pooling data at a central location.”
The study included data from 31 cohorts that are participating in the InterConnect project, including 12 from the Americas, 2 from the Eastern Mediterranean, 9 from Europe, 1 from Southeast Asia, and 7 from the Western Pacific. The study cohort included 1966444 adults who had information available on dietary consumption and incident type 2 diabetes.
During a median follow-up of 10 years, investigators found that there were 107271 incident cases of type 2 diabetes among the participants. The median meat consumption across cohorts was as follows: 0 to 110 grams per day for unprocessed red meat; 0 to 49 grams per day for processed meat; and 0 to 72 grams per day for poultry. Increased incidence of type 2 diabetes was associated with higher consumption of each meat type. The positive associations were found mostly in North America, Europe, and the Western pacific.
Additionally, when processed meat was replaced with unprocessed red meat or poultry, there was a lower association with incidence of type 2 diabetes.
Study limitations include the observational nature of the research, inconsistent tool development procedures and data collection methods for dietary consumption, that the association between red meat and type 2 diabetes could have been underestimated, and a limited availability of studies from Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Central and South America.
“Our research provides the most comprehensive evidence to date of an association between eating processed meat and unprocessed red meat and a higher future risk of type 2 diabetes,” Nita Forouhi, senior author on the study, said in a release.3 “It supports recommendations to limit the consumption of processed meat and unprocessed red meat to reduce type 2 diabetes cases in the population. While our findings provide more comprehensive evidence on the association between poultry consumption and type 2 diabetes than was previously available, the link remains uncertain and needs to be investigated further.”
READ MORE: Diabetes Resource Center
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