Dig in! Scientists now say red meat does not increase cancer risk

Oh those wacky scientists! Once again, the prevailing scientific advice is going to have to be retracted and reversed … this time following a landmark research study that shows eating red meat is NOT linked to heart disease, cancer, diabetes, or other ills.

On Monday, an international group of leading scientists published a series of papers that concluded people can and should simply eat an average amount of red meat, although they stop short of saying that red meat and processed meats are nutritionally healthy or that servings should be increased in a person’s diet.

The new reports are the result of three years of work by 14 researchers in seven countries who reportedly conducted their studies without outside funding or conflicts of interest.

The New York Times reported:

In three reviews, the group looked at studies asking whether eating red meat or processed meats affected the risk of cardiovascular disease or cancer.

To assess deaths from any cause, the group reviewed 61 articles reporting on 55 populations, with more than 4 million participants. The researchers also looked at randomized trials linking red meat to cancer and heart disease (there are very few), as well as 73 articles that examined links between red meat and cancer incidence and mortality.

In each study, the scientists concluded that the links between eating red meat and disease and death were small, and the quality of the evidence was low to very low.

Longstanding nutritional guidelines advising a reduction in the consumption of red meat and processed meats are now at risk of being discarded.

“The certainty of evidence for these risk reductions was low to very low,” said Bradley Johnston, an epidemiologist at Dalhousie University in Canada and leader of the group publishing the new research in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

This latest large-scale evaluation of past studies is among the most...

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