In the News – Processed Meat Linked to Coronary Heart Disease

Not hair loss news, but interesting health stuff…

The first study to systematically separate out the effects of red unprocessed meat from processed-meat products has shown that eating the former is not associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease or diabetes.

But eating 50 g of processed meat per day—the equivalent of one typical hot dog in the US, or two slices of deli meat—was associated with a 42% higher risk of CHD and a 19% increased risk of diabetes, say Dr Renata Micha (Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA) and colleagues in their paper published online May 17, 2010 in Circulation.

Read more of the article at Processed meat, not red meat per se, linked to CHD, diabetes

This is good news for those of you who are meat eaters, but not permission to go overboard. The researchers believe that the increased salt and other preservatives in the processed meat could explain the added risks. So while sausages, salamis, and hot dogs are the foods to avoid, all meats do lead to higher incidences of some cancers (especially colorectal).