One food change could cut heart disease risk by 20%

Replacing red meat with high-quality plant foods such as soy, beans and nuts could reduce the risk of heart disease by up to 20%, according to a recent study. Swapping meat for vegan or vegetarian alternatives, such as whole grains and dairy products, and replacing processed red meat with eggs, could reduce the risk by up to 20 percent.

The study, published by the British Medical Journal (BMJ), shows that a daily portion of red meat could increase the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) by 12%. Eating a lot of red meat, especially processed meat such as bacon, hot dogs, sausages and salami, is associated with a higher risk of death and major chronic diseases such as CHD.

Study author Professor Walter Willet, from the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health in Boston, USA, said: “Replacing red meat with plant-based foods can reduce the risk of heart disease. Replacing whole grains or dairy products with whole red meat and replacing eggs. for processed red meat were also associated with a lower risk of CHD.

“This would also have important environmental benefits.”

Existing studies that show inconsistent results often fail to compare red meat with similar protein and energy sources. To address these issues, researchers compared total, processed, and unprocessed red meat with CHD risk.

They also estimated the effects of replacing other protein sources with red meat on CHD risk. The study, based on a survey of more than 53,000 US men, found that for each serving per day, total red meat was associated with a 12% higher risk of coronary heart disease.

This was observed after taking into account other cardiovascular risk factors. Unprocessed meat was associated with an 11% higher risk, while processed red meat was associated with a 15% higher risk.

While a daily serving of mixed plant protein sources such as nuts, peas, beans, lentils and soy was associated with a 14% lower risk of coronary heart disease compared to red meat. This risk was even lower, at 18%, among men over 65 and compared to processed red meat.

Swapping total red meat for whole grains and dairy products such as milk, cheese, and yogurt, and swapping processed red meat for eggs were also linked to lower CHD risk. Study author and assistant professor Dr Laila Al-Shaar, also from Harvard, said: “This association was particularly strong among younger men, in whom replacing red meat with eggs was associated with an increased risk of 20% lower than CHD”.

Switching red meat to fish was not linked to CHD risk. But researchers say this could be due to the cooking method, such as frying, and the fact that this food group also includes processed fish products.

Dr Al-Shaar said: “This is an observational study, so causation cannot be established.” The researchers add that they cannot rule out the possibility that other unmeasured factors may have influenced their results, despite adjusting for important personal and lifestyle factors.

Dr Al-Shaar added: “Furthermore, study participants were mainly white healthcare professionals, so the results may not be more widely applicable. However, this was a large study with repeated measures of diet over 30 years of follow-up, suggesting that the findings hold up to scrutiny.”

The results show that higher intake of total, unprocessed and processed red meat was associated with a higher risk of CHD, independent of other dietary and non-dietary cardiovascular disease risk factors. Prof Willet added: “These findings are consistent with the effects of these foods on low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels and support a health benefit of limiting red meat consumption and replacing it with plant-based protein sources.”

The study is based on data from more than 43,000 US men in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study who were free of cardiovascular disease and cancer when they enrolled. Participants completed a detailed dietary questionnaire in 1986 and every four years thereafter until 2016, and provided information about their medical history and lifestyle.

Medical records were used to track fatal and non-fatal CHD events over a 30-year period. During this time, 4,456 CHD events were documented, of which 1,860 resulted in death.