It’s unprocessed, sugar-free, and comes from an animal.
However, according to leading Harvard scientists, eating red meat could increase the possibility of your type 2 diabetes risk.
Consuming 2.5 ounces of beef daily, the average equivalent of one single patty of In-N-Out burger, was associated with a 26% higher risk of being diagnosed.
Researchers behind the new research paper assured that all other lifestyle and diet factors were accounted for (type 2 diabetes is regularly linked to low fiber, high sugar diets, sedentary lifestyles, and junk food.
According to a study of over 200,000 adults over 36, the problem is heme iron, found in dairy and meat.
They suggest that heme iron causes body inflammation. This makes the body less responsive to insulin, a hormone that controls blood sugar. Together, these two factors may raise the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
These findings suggest that eating a plant-based diet could help protect against the development of diabetes, according to study author Dr. Frank Hu, a Fredrick J. Stare Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology at Harvard.
“Reducing heme Iron intake, particularly from red meat, and adopting a more plant-based diet can be effective strategies in lowering diabetes risk,” said Dr. Hu.
This is critical considering how common type 2 diabetes is in America. Thirty-eight million adults in the U.S. had diabetes in 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
That’s around 14 percent of the population.
The conditions cause issues with regulating energy and processing sugar. If left untreated, diabetes can cause severe problems like heart disease, stroke, and nerve damage.
Type 1 diabetes usually is caused by an autoimmune disease. In contrast, Type 2 diabetes is frequently caused by lifestyle choices, like eating a diet high in sugar and not exercising.
Most individuals who want to avoid diabetes are told to steer clear of sugar no matter what. However, meat isn’t usually taken off the menu.
Meat from animals has been increasingly targeted as a contributor to numerous health problems, like cancer, despite the fact it’s protein-rich and rich in nutrients like Vitamin B.
Preventative cardiology dietitian and founder of Entirely Nourished, Michelle Routhenstein, who wasn’t involved in the research, confirmed that dietitians are well aware of these worries.
“We want to reduce back our red meat consumption,” said Routhenstein. But she added that it is crucial for those who eat less animal meat to consume adequate protein and iron through other sources.
It can be found in legumes, nuts, and leafy vegetables like kale.
Increasingly, research has linked animal meat to diabetes.
In this research study, published in the journal Nature Metabolism, the Harvard researchers focused on one component of animal meat they believed could be causing this link: heme iron.
This iron type comes from hemoglobin, the chemical in blood types that assists the body in moving oxygen around. Most animal products contain it but at varying levels.
Lamb and beef are exceptionally high in nutrients.
In this case, researchers sorted the 204,600 participants into five groups based on their iron intake from supplements, animals, and plants.
They additionally controlled for factors like exercise, fat intake, race, body weight, sugar intake, blood pressure, family history, smoking, and much more.
“Therefore, the results are unlikely to be influenced by other dietary choices,” said author of the study and research associate in the Department of Nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Fenglei Wang.
Individuals who received the most heme iron — around one and a half mg daily — roughly three ounces of lamb or two and a half ounces of beef — had a 26% higher risk of developing diabetes than those who took in the least amount of heme iron.
A typical serving of beef is around three ounces. An In-N-Out burger with one patty contains about two ounces of beef. Consuming one Big Mac, which contains slightly more than three ounces of beef, daily would put you over the limit.
The group with the most significant risk of developing diabetes consumed the equivalent of five Big Macs weekly.
Because prior studies had found a similar link, Wang said their discoveries were “not very surprising.”
Researchers are uncertain what could explain the link between type 2 diabetes and heme Iron. However, Wang said people who consume significant amounts of heme iron also show signs in their blood of inflammation and insulin resistance.
When the body becomes insulin resistant, it stops processing blood sugar as effectively, which could lead to a build-up in the bloodstream, becoming diabetes.
Inflammation can additionally cause diabetes by straining digestive organs and the pancreas, making it more difficult for the body to process sugar.
