一項針對美國50至71歲男女、從1995年起歷時10年至今的研究調查發現，食用較多紅肉和加工肉品者，死於癌症或心臟病等疾病的風險「有微幅程度增加」。這個結果並不包含家禽肉品。此外，研究者發現食用較多白肉會些微降低死亡率及死於癌症的風險。
這項研究由美國國家癌症研究中心（National Cancer Institute）辛哈博士（Rashmi Sinha）與其團隊進行的。他們以國家衛生研究中心退休者飲食與健康研究計劃的50多萬參與者為樣本，探討紅肉涉取與死亡風險的關聯性。
他們的研究結果刊登至美國醫藥協會期刊「內科醫學文獻」，他們在文中表示，從死亡率來看，如果降低紅肉攝取至最低程度，則可避免11%男性死亡與16%女性死亡。
研究也發現，食用最少的加工肉品的女性，其心血管疾病死亡率較食用最多者減少20%。
針對此報告，處理全美95%紅肉與70%火雞肉的美國肉品協會（American Meat Institute）抨擊，「此研究結果所依賴的資料，僅是受訪自述過去5年吃了什麼，這種資料是有名的不可靠！」然而研究者也指出癌症與肉類的確實關聯性，如在高溫烹煮肉類時會產生包括環胺類、多環芳香烴與亞硝胺基等複合致癌物質。
除了健康考量，此研究的參與者、北卡州大學教堂山分校的波普金博士（Barry Popkin）也在報告中表示，降低肉類攝取將有益於環境，因為顯然水源、能源與食物供給限制的持續惡化與食用類動物的快速消耗的影響洪流，已經釀成全球性的海嘯。
波普金博士也認為，只要不食用加工肉製品，食用些許紅肉與白肉也仍對健康有益，因此重點並不在於是否完全轉換為素食主義者或素食飲食，而是有很大的必要降低肉類攝取、食物產品中的加工肉與其他過度處理和醃製肉以及飽和脂肪的攝取量。
詳細研究結果可上網下載。
People who eat more red meat and processed meats appear to have a "modestly increased risk of death" from all causes and also from cancer or heart disease over a 10-year period, finds a new study of half a million U.S. men and women who were aged 50 to 71 when the research began in 1995.
This health effect does not extend to consumption of poultry. Researchers found that a higher intake of white meat results in a slightly decreased risk for overall death and cancer death.
Rashmi Sinha, PhD, and colleagues at the National Cancer Institute at Rockville studied the association between meat intake and risk of death among more than 500,000 people who were part of the National Institutes of Health-AARP Diet and Health Study.
"For overall mortality, 11 percent of deaths in men and 16 percent of deaths in women could be prevented" if people decreased their red meat consumption to the lowest level, write the authors in their study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association's Archives of Internal Medicine on Monday.
For women eating processed meat at the lowest level, the decrease in cardiovascular disease mortality was about 20 percent, compared to women eating the most processed meat, the study found.
The American Meat Institute, a trade association of companies that process 95 percent of red meat and 70 percent of turkey in the United States, faulted the study for "relying on notoriously unreliable self reporting about what was eaten in the preceding five years."
But the authors point out that in relation to cancer, meat is a source of several multi-site carcinogens, including heterocyclic amines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are both formed during high-temperature cooking of meat, as well as N-nitroso compounds.
Reducing meat consumption also will have beneficial effects on the environment, writes Barry Popkin, PhD, of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in an editorial accompanying the study. "There is a global tsunami brewing, namely, we are seeing the confluence of growing constraints on water, energy and food supplies combined with the rapid shift toward greater consumption of all animal source foods," he says.
Because there are health benefits to eating some red and white meats, although not processed meats, the consensus is not for a complete shift to vegan or vegetarian diets, Dr. Popkin concludes. "Rather, the need is for a major reduction in total meat intake, an even larger reduction in processed meat and other highly processed and salted animal source food products and a reduction in total saturated fat." Click here to read the full study results.
