The Medical Health Plus

For a better diet, Eat less meat!

Keep your red meat intake to a few servings a week, and avoid processed meat altogether. Meat is a good source of protein, zinc, vitamin B12, and selenium, but you can also get those nutrients from plants. Red meat is also high in saturated fat, which clearly contributes to heart disease. And it’s a source of calories. As your metabolism slows and your caloric needs decrease, eating less meat helps keep your weight down.

Food and health experts say more and more people are adopting some type of vegetarian diet, but what they choose to eat and not eat depends on what type of vegetarian they want to be. Many people decide to eat a vegetarian diet for health reasons. Research has shown that vegetarians have a lower body mass index (BMI) and lower cholesterol and are less likely to die from heart disease. They may also be at lower risk for constipation, diverticulosis (small pouches that protrude from the large intestine and can become infected and inflamed), gallstones, and appendicitis.

Others become vegetarians for religious beliefs, because of environmental or animal welfare concerns, for economic reasons, or because they just don’t like the taste or texture of meat.

Researchers compared the eating habits and health status of 322,263 men and 223,390 women enrolled in the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study, starting in 1995; participants were 50 to 71 years old when they signed up. The people who reported eating the most red meat ate more than eight 3- to 4-ounce servings a week, while the people on the low end ate about a serving a week. Over the next 10 years, the men who ate the most red meat had a 31 percent greater risk of death than the men who ate the least amount. The women who ate the most red meat faced a 36 percent increase when compared to the women in the low red meat-eating group.

Cutting back on red meat in your diet may have wide-ranging health effects. It’s not exactly clear why red meat is linked to a higher risk of death, but saturated fat is most likely to blame. We eat to enhance our well-being; that means consuming not just foods with antioxidants and other preventive elements, but also those that make us feel good because they satisfy our senses and make our toes curl in pleasure. Shorten Life

Eating Too Much Red Meat May Shorten Life

Diets high in red meat and in processed meat shorten life span not just from cancer and heart disease. Nutritionists believe that to avoid a number of major diseases such as diabetes, obesity, some cancers, hypertension or heart disease, we should lessen our fat consumption by approximately 25 per cent. It is possible to lower the risk of death from heart disease, brought on by atherosclerosis over many years, by following a diet that is low in fat, or one offering a high proportion of polyunsaturated fats from plants or fish.

It appears possible that lean red meat could diminish the susceptibility of humans to sudden cardiac death. Lean red meat is not only a good source of protein and energy, but also has benefits in avoiding heart disease.

Although processed meat with high fat content and/or preservatives has been shown to be associated with an increased risk of cancer of the colon, this risk does not appear to apply to red meat in most studies. Red meat included beef, pork, bacon, ham, hamburger, hot dogs, liver, pork sausage, steak, and meats in foods such as pizza, stews, and lasagna. While white meat included turkey, fish, chicken, chicken mixtures, and other meats.

Processed meat was either white or red meat that was cured, dried, or smoked, Sinha says, such as bacon, chicken sausage, lunch meats, and cold cuts. Processed meats are worse than red meats from a health point of view, consumers can reduce their risk of dying from cancer, heart disease, or other problems by curtailing their intake of red and processed meats.

Meat Intakes: High vs. Low

What was considered a high intake and what was low?

* For red meat, those in the highest intake group ate a median amount of 4.5 ounces a day (half ate more, half ate less), based on an average 2,000-calorie a day diet. Those in the lowest intake group ate a little over a half-ounce a day.

* For processed meat, those in the highest intake group about 1.5 ounces a day (about 2 slices of deli turkey), compared to just 0.11 ounces for those in the lowest intake group.

New study links meat to cancer of small intestine

Eating red and processed meats have long been associated with cancer of the large intestine long time ago. Professor David Shuker, head of the Open University team, said: “These combined discoveries have allowed us to link red meat consumption to an increased risk of bowel cancer and may give us some clues about developing a screening test for very early changes related to the disease.” For the first time again, scientists have looked at whether eating red meat and other animal fats is also linked to cancers of the small intestine. This study show yet again what natural health advocates have said for years ago about eating red meat and diets high in animal fats are a good way to promote cancer and not wellness.

The new study, which was published in the Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, strongly suggests eating diets high in red meat, animails and other saturated fats is associated cancer of the small intestine as well – a kind of cancer that has been steadily increasing since the l970s. If a person gets this type of cancer, they are at increased risk of also developing a second malignancy, an often deadly colorectal cancer.

“Identifying modifiable risk factors for cancer of the small intestine is important not only because the incidence of this cancer is on the rise now adays, but it may enable us to further understand other gastrointestinal malignancies,”  said, Dr. Amanda Cross. (National Cancer Institute researcher and the study’s)