Processed, Red Meat Tied to Diabetes Risk

Maybe it's time to break out the veggie hot dogs - or at least cut back on the amount of red meat you eat - if you want to prevent type 2 diabetes.

A recent study found that eating a daily portion of unprocessed red meat about the size of a deck of cards increased the risk for diabetes by 19 percent. Switching the type of meat to the processed kind - a hot dog or sausage, say - increased diabetes risk to 51 percent.

The researchers also found that substituting whole grains, nuts, or low-fat dairy for meat had a protective effect.

Dietary changes

"Clearly, the results from this study have huge public health implications given the rising type 2 diabetes epidemic and increasing consumption of red meats worldwide," says senior author Frank Hu, at Harvard University. "The good news is that such troubling risk factors can be offset by swapping red meat for a healthier protein."

Dr. Hu and other researchers at Harvard examined several decades' worth of data on more than 200,000 people: 20 years of data from participants in the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, 28 years of data from the Nurses' Health Study I, and 14 years of data from Nurses' Health Study II. They also looked at data on more than 400,000 others, including nearly 30,000 who developed type 2 diabetes.

Among people who ate one daily serving of red meat, substituting one serving of whole grains per day reduced the risk of diabetes by 23 percent. Substituting nuts resulted in a 21 percent lower risk, and substituting a low-fat dairy product, a 17 percent lower risk.

The study was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Always talk with your health care provider to find out more information.