Eating red meat linked to higher risk of type 2 diabetes, study finds

kshama2001

As always with these study results, I wonder if the effect is from red meat per se, or the absence of other foods. I usually think fruit and vegetables. This says there were be better outcomes with nuts or legumes. So I wonder if the people who eat the most red meat never eat nuts or legumes. What if someone eats all three?

And then there is the whole issue around inaccuracy with self-reporting...

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/19/health/red-meat-type-2-diabetes-risk-study-wellness/index.html

A large new study by Harvard researchers suggests having just two servings of red meat per week increases risk for developing type 2 diabetes later in life, and the risk further increases with greater consumption, according to the study published Thursday in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

...By the end of the follow-up periods, nearly 22,800 people developed type 2 diabetes, and those who ate the most total red meat had a 62% higher risk of developing the disease, compared with people who ate the least. Eating the most processed or unprocessed red meat was linked with a 51% and 40% higher risk of type 2 diabetes, respectively.

Processed meat, the authors defined, included sausage, beef or pork hot dogs, bacon, processed meat sandwiches; one serving equaled 28 grams of bacon or 45 grams of the other meats.

Unprocessed meat included lean or extra lean hamburger, regular hamburger, beef, pork or lamb as a sandwich or mixed dish; and pork, beef or lamb as a main dish. Eighty-five grams of pork, beef or lamb constituted one serving of unprocessed meat.

...Additionally, swapping a meat serving for nuts or legumes meant a 30% reduction in risk for developing type 2 diabetes, while opting for dairy instead reduced the odds by 22%.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0002916523661192?via=ihub

cmriverside

"Those who ate the most," leads me to the conclusion that they ate the most in general.

Did they differentiate based on total calorie intake and/or weight and exercise levels of the people in the study?

Doesn't really seem like enough data points.

_John_

Yeah, I would hope a lot of that is hashed in the full text and this isn't another "higher red meat intake associated with a lot of other risk factors for chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes".

Also, just in the abstract, I find full fat hamburger meat, and thus red meat from most "fast food", being counted as "unprocessed" kind of dubious.

And the mechanism for how it might CAUSE diabetes, "because it's high in saturated fat and heme iron," I find rather weak vs. other dietary factors more directly associated with insulin.

I personally eat quite a bit of red meat, but it's almost all from lean cuts of steak, deer meat, and 93/7 ground (or leaner). The "saturated fat" argument almost completely goes away at that point as the meat has no more or less than most of the foods the paper suggests to replace red meat with.

neanderthin

First question should be how did they assess risk? Also risk is defined as exposure to danger and we would need to know the exact mechanism of harm. If something causes a risk it then must be determined by experimental science under very tight controls that actually show that cause and effect. Without a control group, risk simply can't be established. Oh wait, they said "may cause" Ok, Harvard is off the hook then, and they can continue using epidemiology and observational data based on food frequency questionnaires, carry on Harvard. It is nice to see these facts didn't escape the members here.

rileysowner

First, it is an epidemiological study based on participants recollection and reporting of what they ate with a frequency of at least 2 and as much as 4 years between them. That right away calls into question any results since participant reported diaries of eating are notoriously inaccurate. If I didn't log what I ate I would forget after a day. I have had times when I said to myself I will log this later, I will remember it, and even within that day I have forgotten details. Secondly, with eating questionnaires having as much time between them, there are very likely lots of things that are not recorded and thus not accounted for. Third, looking into the head researcher he has a definite bias toward a plant based diet. Those sort of biases are especially problematic in epidemiological studies as they very easily, even when unintentionally, carry over into the results. Fourth, this is not based on any new data. They are simply re-working existing data. Fifth, since this is epidemiological it is but a correlation. Yes, I know that smoking causing cancer is also based on epidemiological studies, but with all the other issues with this, I think I will simply disregard it as yet another plant based researcher finding what he or she wants to.