Higher red meat intake increases risk for cognitive decline, dementia

Key takeaways:

• Individuals who ate more processed red meat had a higher risk for dementia and cognitive decline.
• Replacing processed red meat with nuts and legumes had benefits for cognitive health.

Higher consumption of red meat, including processed red meat, was associated with a higher risk for cognitive decline and dementia, according to research published in Neurology.

“Dietary guidelines tend to focus on reducing risks of chronic conditions like heart disease and diabetes, while cognitive health is less frequently discussed, despite being linked to these diseases,” study author Daniel Wang, MD, ScD, from the Channing Division of Network Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said in a release related to the study.

Wang and colleagues sought to examine relationships between eating red meat and cognitive health, while clarifying associations between red meat consumption and cognitive outcomes, including incident dementia.

Their prospective cohort study included 133,771 participants (65.4% women) without dementia at baseline from two U.S.-based cohort studies: the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (HPFS).

The researchers assessed the participants’ diets through a comprehensive, semi-quantitative food questionnaire that was completed every 2 to 4 years for both studies. They also measured objective cognitive function (OCF) with the Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status and subjective cognitive decline (SCD) through questionnaires at two different time points for both studies. Dementia was assessed as a composite of self-reported measures and deaths due to the condition.

The researchers set baselines of 1980 for NHS (n = 87,424) and 1986 for HPFS (n = 46,347) in the dementia analysis; 1994 for NHS (n = 17,458) in the OCF analysis; and 2012 for NHS (n = 33,908) and HPFS (n = 10,058) in the SCD analysis.

According to the results, more than 11,000 individuals across both studies were diagnosed with dementia.

Individuals who consumed more than a quarter serving of processed red meat per day had a 13% higher risk for dementia compared with those who consumed less than a tenth of a serving (HR = 1.13; 95% CI 1.08-1.19) as well as a 14% higher risk for SCD (RR = 1.14; 95% CI 1.04-1.25).

Data further showed that higher processed red meat intake was associated with accelerated aging in global cognition (1.61 years per 1 serving per day increment; 95% CI 0.2-3.03) along with verbal memory (1.69 years per 1 serving per day increment; 95% CI 0.13-3.25).

Wang and colleagues also reported that unprocessed red meat intake of one serving per day or more, compared with less than half a serving per day, was associated with a 16% higher risk for SCD (RR = 1.16; 95% CI 1.03-1.3).

Replacing processed red meat with one serving per day of nuts and legumes was associated with a 19% lower risk for dementia (HR = 0.81, 95% CI 0.75-0.86), 1.37 fewer years of cognitive aging (95% CI 2.49 to 0.25) and a 21% lower risk for SCD (RR = 0.79, 95% CI 0.68–0.92), according to the researchers.

“Replacing red meat with alternative, healthier protein sources, such as plant-based options, could help reduce cognitive decline and the risk of dementia,” Wang and colleagues wrote. “Replacing processed red meat with healthier protein sources may have substantial benefits for maintaining cognitive health.”

Reference:

Red meat consumption increases risk of dementia and cognitive decline. https://www.massgeneralbrigham.org/en/about/newsroom/press-releases/red-meat-increases-risk-of-dementia. Published Jan. 15, 2025. Accessed Jan. 15, 2025.