Eating red meat raises risk of type 2 diabetes

Eating processed or red meat increases the risk of type 2 diabetes, with two slices of ham a day raising the danger by 15%, the largest study of its kind suggests.

- Andrew Gregory

Research led by the University of Cambridge and involving 2 million people provides the world's most comprehensive evidence yet of a link between meat and the disease that presents one of the most pressing dangers to global health.

More than 400 million people around the world have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, which is a major cause of blindness, kidney failure, heart attacks, stroke and lower limb amputation.

As well as maintaining a healthy weight and moving more, evidence increasingly suggests one of the main ways to lower the risk of the disease is to improve your diet.

Experts who conducted a metaanalysis of data involving 1.97 million adults from 20 countries across Europe, the Americas, the eastern Mediterranean, south-east Asia and the western Pacific say the results support recommendations to limit the consumption of processed and red meat.

Their findings were published in the Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology journal.

"Our research provides the most comprehensive evidence to date of an association between eating processed meat and unprocessed red meat and a higher future risk of type 2 diabetes," said Prof Nita Forouhi, a senior author of the study from Cambridge.