Impact of meat consumption on development of type 2 diabetes focus of study
Researchers examine how eating meat can impact on risk of type 2 diabetes.
An extensive study of almost 2 million people from around the world has sought to answer some questions about the risk of developing type 2 diabetes if eating meat.
Researchers cited contradictory existing reports and limited studies as cause for wider examination of this topic.
The study reported that the consumption of meat, particularly processed meat and unprocessed red meat, could be a risk factor for developing type 2 diabetes across populations.
Researchers said: “These findings highlight the importance of reducing meat consumption for public health and should inform dietary guidelines.”
Researchers said their study offered “an extensive evaluation of associations between meat consumption and type 2 diabetes using an individual-participant federated meta-analysis, including more than 100,000 cases of incident type 2 diabetes arising from 31 cohorts in 20 countries”.
The findings of the study were recently published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology
Researchers said: “Global meat production has increased rapidly over the past 50 years. Dietary meat consumption surpasses optimal dietary guidelines in many regions and is correlated with an elevated burden of non-communicable diseases, including type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes affects more than 500 million people worldwide and is estimated to affect 1 billion people by 2050. Evidence from several meta-analyses of published prospective studies shows a positive association between intakes of unprocessed red meat and processed meat and the risk of type 2 diabetes. However, some reviews have drawn contradictory conclusions on the certainty of evidence in this field. Specifically, some studies concluded that the current evidence is weak and of low certainty for guiding dietary recommendations to limit meat consumption.”
Of the findings, researchers commented: “The association between poultry consumption and type 2 diabetes was weaker than that for unprocessed red meat and processed meat consumption, but still suggested a slightly higher rate of type 2 diabetes. Moreover, when replacing processed meat consumption, both unprocessed red meat and poultry consumption were associated with a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes in modelled food substitution analyses.
“In conclusion, higher meat consumption was associated with higher type 2 diabetes incidence in a global individual-participant-based federated meta-analysis. The current findings support the notion that lowering the consumption of unprocessed red meat and processed meat could benefit public health by reducing the incidence of type 2 diabetes.
“Uncertainty remains regarding the positive association between poultry consumption and the incidence of type 2 diabetes, and this association should be further investigated. Beyond research on type 2 diabetes, our integrative work stimulates further investigation on sustainable dietary patterns to reduce meat consumption and its effect on other non-communicable diseases, multi-morbidity, and planetary health.”
Read the full report in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology
Read more about type 2 diabetes
Read the DRWF diabetes information leaflet Healthy eating for diabetes
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