More studies reinforce importance of red meat in mitigating disease

WHILE studies that say red meat is harmful to health continue to make their way into news cycles across the world, there is a growing body of evidence suggesting otherwise.

With chronic disease on the rise in high and low-income countries, a group of scientists are trying to get policy makers to take note and make sure vulnerable people have access to the essential nutrition meat provides. (Read more about their push for a new approach to dietary guidelines here)

The recent Societal Role of Meat conference in Denver heard from multiple scientists who had been studying the impact of diets on disease – they found that regularly eating unprocessed red meat contributes to more adequately nourished populations

Global study finds lower risk of disease with red meat

The PURE study was recognised as one of the most diverse studies of diets across the world, and one of the only studies to truly represent low, middle and high-income countries.

In what was clearly a massive logistical effort, PURE analysed the diets of 135,000 people from 667 communities across 18 countries and five continents to see what types of diets were best at protecting from mortality and cardiovascular disease.

Dr Andrew Mente

PURE did verified surveys of the diets of people living in communities, who were initially free of disease. It found a series of issues including a link between carbohydrates and health issues.

However, one of its less recognised findings was that regularly consuming unprocessed red meat was likely to lower the risk of disease and mortality.

Lead author Dr Andrew Mente from McMaster University in Canada said it was important to make a distinction between processed and unprocessed red meat – which were lumped in together in most other studies.

“For unprocessed red meat, we found consumption of up to 250g of red meat per day was associated with a lower risk of mortality,” he said.

Dr Mente said while all countries in the study had issues with cardiovascular disease and death, problems were more pronounced in lower-income countries.

“The consumption of these foods (including red meat) is very low in low-income countries where there is a large amount of undernutrition – so getting these populations to increase their intake of these protective foods could result in the greatest benefit,” he said.

Protecting against not enough meat

Reinforcing these findings was Washington University professor Lora Lannotti, who has been looking into the causes of growth stunting in low-income countries in Africa and South America.

Dr Lora Lannotti

She said there was one main correlation between diets and stunting.

“Countries with very low levels of meat consumption have very high levels of stunting,” she said.

Dr Lannotti said the need for the nutrients was particularly acute during different stages of life.

“Those include women during pregnancy and lactation, both with a foetus and breast-feeding child, infants and young children, school-aged children, adolescence and older adults,” she said.

Dr Lannotti’s main work has been looking into specific communities where growth stunting and malnutrition was an issue to see what interventions could improve health.

She said a constant theme with malnourished communities was that they were eating diets that were high in carbohydrates and lacking vital macro and micronutrients – a situation that could be improved with the addition of more meat.

“Nutrients lacking in many lower and middle-income countries are found concentrated in highly bioavailable animal-sourced foods,” Dr Lannotti said.

Dr Lannotti’s work had also involved improving environmental outcomes in these communities. However, she said environmental improvements could not come by limiting access to foods, like meat, that are vital in the fight against malnutrition.

“Low-and-middle-income countries are affected disproportionately by undernutrition, stunting and wasting, overweight and obesity and the problem of global hunger” she said.

“Vast disparities exist in animal sourced food consumption levels in high-income vs low and middle-income countries.

“While we work to protect the environment and minimise the risk of overconsumption of animal sourced foods, we have to simultaneously protect vulnerable populations against the risk of having too little animal sourced foods.”

Nutrient deficiencies also a problem in high income countries

While low-income countries are disproportionately impacted by malnutrition, University of California researcher Ty Beal said nutrient deficiencies were still an issue in high-income countries.

Dr Beal said as populations gain wealth their diets become more diverse, which can have a positive impact and open up the potential to consume more nourishing diets.

Dr Ty Beal

However, he said the general trend in high income countries has been ultra-processed foods displacing nutrient dense whole foods.

“When you eat a bunch of junk foods, you are not eating something else and that is what is causing a lot of undernutrition that we don’t talk about,” he said.

Using a colour-coded map, which showed the value of ultra-processed foods across the world it was clear that high income countries were eating more of it than the rest of the world. However, Dr Beal said lower-income countries were following suit.

“It is interesting and concerning to see the rapid growth of ultra-processed foods in Sub-Saharan Africa and some places in Asia,” he said.

Dr Beal said the general trend with diets in high income countries is that women eat less red meat and men eat more sugary foods.

He said iron deficiencies were a problem among high income countries, which was a particular concern for pregnant women – folate and magnesium deficiencies were also prevalent.

Part of the presentation was looking at the role of micronutrients, many of which could only be found in meat.

“Animal-sourced foods are the only source intrinsic retinol, haem iron, vitamin b12, vitamin d3 – there are no other sources of these micronutrients,” Dr Beal said.

In keeping with a theme throughout all the presentations, Dr Beal said it was important to note that meat was an part of a balanced diet, where fruit vegetables are also consumed in abundance.

“I don’t want to forget the role of plant-sourced foods, there are nutrients that are lacking in a diet that are much higher in plant-sourced foods,” he said.

“Plant-source foods are the only source of fibre and important sources of phytonutrients, vitamin c, folate, vitamin e, magnesium and potassium.”