THURSDAY, Oct. 19, 2023 (HealthDay Information) — Suppose twice about ordering that double cheeseburger, salami on rye or juicy T-bone.
Simply two servings of crimson meat per week — processed or unprocessed — can improve your threat of kind 2 diabetes by 62%, based on a new examine.
“A modest however statistically important improve in threat was seen with even two servings of crimson meat per week, and threat continued to extend with larger intakes,” mentioned lead writer Xiao Gu, a postdoctoral analysis fellow at Harvard’s T.H. Chan College of Public Well being in Boston. “Our findings counsel that changing crimson meat with wholesome plant-based protein sources, corresponding to nuts and legumes, or modest intakes of dairy meals, would scale back the chance of diabetes.”
The examine cannot show that consuming crimson meat causes kind 2 diabetes, however there seems to be a hyperlink.
And a serving of meat is probably going smaller than you would possibly suspect.
One serving of unprocessed crimson meat is about 3 ounces of pork, beef or lamb; a serving of processed crimson meat is about 1 ounce of bacon or 2 ounces of sizzling canine, sausage, salami, bologna or different processed crimson meats, Gu mentioned.
Crimson meat is often excessive in saturated fats and low in polyunsaturated fats, Gu mentioned.
“Research have proven that saturated fats can cut back beta cell operate and insulin sensitivity, which leads to kind 2 diabetes,” he defined.
“Crimson meat additionally has a excessive content material of heme iron, which will increase oxidative stress and insulin resistance and impairs beta cell operate by its by-product of nitric oxide compounds,” Gu mentioned. “For processed crimson meats, there’s additionally a excessive content material of nitrates and their byproducts, which promote cell dysfunction and insulin resistance.”
For the examine, Gu and his colleagues collected knowledge on almost 217,000 members from the Nurses’ Well being Examine and the Well being Professionals Observe-up Examine.
Their diets have been assessed with meals questionnaires for as much as 36 years. Throughout this time, greater than 22,000 members developed kind 2 diabetes.
Individuals who ate essentially the most crimson meat had a 62% larger threat for kind 2 diabetes, in contrast with those that ate the least.