Eating more meat may increase risk for developing type 2 diabetes
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Key takeaways:
- The risk for incident type 2 diabetes rises with higher intake of processed meat, unprocessed red meat and poultry.
- Replacing processed meat with unprocessed red meat or poultry may lower risk for diabetes.
Adults who eat greater amounts of meat may have increased risk for developing type 2 diabetes, according to data published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology.
In a meta-analysis of data from 1,966,444 adults without diabetes at baseline from across the world, researchers found the risk for developing type 2 diabetes rose 10% with every 100 g of unprocessed red meat eaten per day, 15% per every 50 g of processed meat eaten per day and 8% with every 100 g of poultry consumed daily.
“The current findings support the notion that lowering the consumption of unprocessed red meat and processed meat could benefit public health by reducing the incidence of type 2 diabetes,” Nita G. Forouhi, FMedSci, physician-scientist, professor of population health and nutrition and program leader of the nutritional epidemiology program at the University of Cambridge in the U.K., Nicholas J. Wareham, FMedSci, director of the Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit in the Institute of Metabolic Science at the University of Cambridge in the U.K., and colleagues wrote.
Researchers collected data from 31 population cohorts participating in the global InterConnect project. Unprocessed red meat, processed meat and poultry consumption were ascertained through self-reported dietary data. Incident type 2 diabetes was defined through a diagnosis in medical records or a registry, confirmed use of a diabetes medication or a verified self-report of a diagnosis or self-report of diabetes medication use.
Median daily meat consumption ranged as a high as 110 g for unprocessed red meat, 49 g for processed meat and 72 g for poultry.
During a median follow-up of 10 years, there were 107,271 incident cases of type 2 diabetes. The risk for developing type 2 diabetes increased with each 100 g of unprocessed red meat eaten per day (HR = 1.1; 95% CI, 1.06-1.15), each 50 g of processed meat consumed daily (HR = 1.15; 95% CI, 1.11-1.2) and each 100 g of poultry eaten per day (HR = 1.08; 95% CI, 1.02-1.14).
The researchers noted there was some uncertainty regarding the link between poultry and type 2 diabetes, as the association was weaker in a fixed-effects model.
Eating unprocessed red meat and processed meat was associated with a higher risk for type 2 diabetes in the Americas, Europe, East Asia and Western Pacific regions of the world. Poultry was only associated with increased risk for developing type 2 diabetes in Europe.
In a food substitution analysis, replacing 50 g of processed meat with 100 g of unprocessed red meat per day (HR = 0.93; 95% CI, 0.9-0.97) or 100 g of poultry per day (HR = 0.9; 95% CI, 0.82-0.97) lowered the risk for developing type 2 diabetes. Replacing 100 g of unprocessed red meat with 100 g of poultry each day did not alter the risk for incident type 2 diabetes.
The researchers cautioned that while the meta-analysis includes a large study population, several world regions were underrepresented or not included at all.
“Although we considerably increased the geographical diversity of study locations compared with previous analyses, overall there is still limited availability of studies from Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Central and South America, reflecting an important research gap and highlighting the need for prospective epidemiological research in these locations,” the researchers wrote.
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