Eating large amounts of processed meat is associated with an increased risk of all cause mortality, a large prospective cohort study has found.

Data on 448,568 men and women, from ten countries including the UK, enrolled in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study were analysed.

Participants were aged between 35 and 69 years at baseline and none had cancer, stroke or myocardial infarction. Information on diet, smoking, physical activity and body mass index, was available for all subjects. Median follow-up was 12.7 years.

The researchers examined the association of meat consumption with all cause and cause-specific mortality.

There were 26,344 deaths during the study. After multivariate adjustment and correction for measurement error, a high consumption of processed meat was associated with a higher all cause mortality, hazard ratio (HR) 1.18 (95% CI:1.11-1.25) per 50 g/d.

Cause-specific analysis revealed significant associations between processed meat intake and cardiovascular disease and cancer. Risk of cardiovascular death was increased by more than 70% among people eating more than 160 g of processed meat per day compared with those eating 10-19.9 g/day.

The risk for unprocessed red meat was much lower that that of processed meat and did not reach statistical significance. The consumption of poultry was not related to all cause mortality.

Those with the highest consumption of red or processed meat were more likely to smoke, have a low intake of fruit and vegetables and less likely to have a degree.

The authors concluded that consumption of processed meat should be limited as such foods tend to contain more saturated fat, more cholesterol and additives, and have a high salt content, which is closely linked to the development of hypertension, a further cardiovascular risk factor.

They estimate that 3% of premature deaths each year could be prevented if people ate less than 20 g of processed meat per day.

This study did not find a statistically significant association between unprocessed red meat consumption and mortality and as such the authors felt that eating a low to moderate amount of meat was reasonable as part of a balanced diet.

Dr Peter Savill

• Rohrmann S, Overvad K, Bueno-de-Mesquita HB et al. Meat consumption and mortality - results from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition. BMC Med 2013,11:63