It doesn’t seem like news any more, but eating animal flesh is bad for you. Very bad. But as well as increasing the risk of certain types of cancer, a study out this week has found that eating red meat and poultry is also linked with higher occurrences of nine common non-cancerous diseases including heart disease, pneumonia and diabetes.

A study conducted by researchers from the University of Oxford and published in the journal BMC Medicine yesterday has linked eating regular portions of red meat and poultry to nine of the 25 most common non-cancerous diseases that put people in the hospital, adding yet more weight to the growing body of evidence that confirms what the plant-based community has been saying for years now: eating dead animals is very bad for your health indeed.

The World Health Organisation already classifies unprocessed red animal flesh as a Group 2A carcinogen and processed meats like sausages and bacon in Group 1 together with smoking cigarettes, but until now their link to the leading non-cancerous causes of hospitalisation in the UK has not been studied.

Using data from 475,000 middle-aged adults gathered over four years, of the 25 most common non-cancer diseases regular intake - that being three or more times per week - of “unprocessed red meat, processed meat, and poultry meat consumption was associated with higher risks of several common conditions.”

These include ischaemic heart disease, pneumonia, diverticular disease, colon polyps and diabetes in relation to processed and unprocessed red meat; while higher poultry meat intake was associated with higher risks of gastro-oesophageal reflux disease, gastritis and duodenitis, diverticular disease, gallbladder disease, and diabetes.

Eating more unprocessed red meat and bird flesh was however associated with a lower risk of developing anaemia caused by iron deficiency, but as vegans we know we should be eating plenty of leafy greens and legumes or supplementing, like anyone who cares about adequate nutrition plant-based or otherwise. The effort of eating more kale or finding a vegan-friendly iron supplement seems worth it for a reduced risk of developing bowel cancer or any one of nine debilitating or fatal diseases listed in the Oxford study.

The threshold for what is considered a higher risk daily amount of dead animal is also startling low at just 70g according to the study - that’s equivalent to two rashers of bacon, half a burger patty, or just a third of an eight-ounce steak.

The study is not entirely conclusive and the authors state that further research is necessary to determine a causal relationship, plus the fact that many of the people linked to diseases also had a higher body mass index (BMI) - in other words, weight and obesity could also be part of the story. 

But given what we know about eating flesh already - plus the findings of another recent cohort study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association which gathered data from 142,000 postmenopausal women aged 50 to 79 years over a period of 24 years and found that “higher plant protein intake and substitution of animal protein with plant protein were associated with lower risk of all‐cause mortality, CVD mortality, and dementia mortality”- the message is clear: stop eating animals.

Andrew Gough is Media and Investigations Manager at Surge.

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