Does Red Meat Cause Diabetes?

Photo by Thiago Diniz: https://www.pexels.com/photo/hamburgers-and-beverages-15344191/

Research can be useful in suggesting medical interventions as well as lifestyle modifications to improve health, but not all research is created equal and unfortunately the quality of research studies does not seem to be a factor in what gets picked for dissemination in the media.

Case in point, a couple of weeks ago a story caught my eye on my Yahoo! news feed with the headline, “New Research Warns One Dietary Source May Be Linked to Diabetes…”

Clicking through to the article, I was surprised to see that the dietary source in question was red meat. The relative healthfulness of red meat has been a subject of disagreement among nutrition experts for a long time, but the suggestion that it might cause Type II diabetes was a new one on me.

I’ve been around long enough to know that health reporters and others who publicize research can and often do take some liberties with the facts of the research they are discussing, or simply misunderstand the findings, and draw conclusions that can be far-removed from what the research actually found, so I like to look at the research data itself.

Conveniently, there was a link to the actual research article from the December 2023 edition of The American Journal for Clinical Nutrition, and I clicked through to that. The very short version is, sure enough, the research found that those study subjects with the highest red meat consumption had a higher incidence of Type II diabetes.

But one sentence stood out to me:

“In both females and males, those with higher total red meat intake had higher BMI and total energy intake, were less physically active, were more likely to be current smokers, and were less likely to use multivitamins.”

Let’s break that down.

Those with higher total red meat intake also had higher BMI (Body Mass Index) and total energy intake, meaning they were heavier and ate more in general, not just more red meat.

They were less physically active.

They were more likely to be smokers.

They were less likely to use vitamins.

So, the folks eating the most red meat generally had less-healthy lifestyles, and had multiple risk factors for developing Type II diabetes.

Now, the researchers went into all sorts of statistical analysis to justify ignoring that fact, and eliminating the established risk factors as risk factors and frankly, my statistics classes were too long ago for me to be confident in assessing whether the numbers supported that dismissal of other lifestyle factors.

But here’s the thing…

Looking further at the data, the researchers looked at red meat consumption – of both processed and unprocessed red meat, consumption of other protein sources (poultry, dairy, eggs, etc.), and fruits and vegetables. They even looked at alcohol consumption.

In other words, they looked at every possible food source.

Well, every possible food source except grain-based carbohydrates and refined sugars… but how important could those be when we’re looking at diabetes, right?!

This brings me back to the people with the highest red meat consumption. They were also the heaviest and had the highest overall calorie consumption. So, chances are, they probably also had the highest consumption of refined carbohydrates – the foods that have been pretty solidly established as being a major risk factor for diabetes.

I’m probably stating the obvious here, but there’s a difference in the impact on blood sugar between eating a hamburger on a white bread (high-sugar) bun with fries, a coke (with roughly 8 teaspoons of sugar per 12 ounce serving) and a milk shake, and eating a steak with a salad or some steamed vegetables. And there’s a really big difference in diabetes risk if you eat the burger, fries, coke and shake on a regular basis!

Now, it’s possible that red meat might in some way put at least some people at greater risk of developing diabetes, but the vast majority of research to date puts the blame squarely on refined carbohydrates – and the way this study was conducted does not provide a convincing argument to the contrary. To do a study on dietary factors in diabetes but leave out any analysis of refined carbohydrate intake in favor of blaming red meat is pretty ridiculous in my opinion.

I have to say, research like this appearing in a highly-regarded peer-reviewed journal like The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition is pretty disappointing. Since it was the December edition, maybe their review board was in holiday mode and not really paying attention!

Anyway, my point in sharing this is to suggest a healthy dose of skepticism when it comes to new research findings – particularly when publicized in popular media.

Until next time…

George Best, D.C.