Association between meat intake and mortality due to all-cause and major causes of death in a Japanese population

Abstract

Purpose We examined the association between meat intake and mortality due to all-cause and major causes of death using a population-based cohort study in Japan. Methods 87,507 Japanese aged between 45 and 74 years old at 5-year follow-up study were followed for 14.0 years on average. Associations between meat intake and mortality risk were assessed using a Cox proportional hazards model. Results A heavy intake of total meat was associated with a higher risk of all-cause mortality relative to the lowest quartile intake in men (Q4: HR,1.18; 95%CIs, 1.06–1.31). A higher intake of total meat was associated with a lower risk of stroke mortality in women (Q2: HR, 0.70; 95%CIs, 0.51–0.94, Q3: HR, 0.68; 95%CIs, 0.50–0.95, Q4: HR, 0.66; 95%CIs, 0.44–0.99). A heavy intake of red meat was also associated with all-cause mortality (Q4: HR, 1.13; 95%CIs, 1.02–1.26) and heart disease mortality (Q4: HR, 1.51; 95%CIs, 1.11–2.06) in men but not in women. Heavy intake of chicken was inversely associated with cancer mortality in men. Conclusions Heavy intakes of total and red meat were associated with an increase in all-cause and heart disease mortality in men, while total meat intake was associated with a lower risk of stroke mortality in women.

Meat consumption and risk of ischemic heart disease: A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Pooled associations were the same when estimates of pork were included instead of beef for Saito et al (2020) (RR per 50 g/day 1.09, 95%-CI 1.06, 1.12, I 2 ¼ 41.0%, Q ¼ 25.4, p ¼ .05 for heterogeneity; RR high vs. low 1.12, 95%-CI 1.07, 1.17; Table S5, supplementary material).…”

“…Seven studies investigated both fatal and non-fatal IHD including MI (Al-Shaar et al 2020;Bernstein et al 2010;Burke et al 2007;Haring et al 2014;Key et al 2019;Møller et al 2021;Papier et al 2021), one study was restricted to non-fatal MI (Iqbal et al 2021), and five were restricted to fatal IHD (Saito et al 2020;Fraser et al 1992;Nagao et al 2012;Takata et al 2013;Whiteman et al 1999). Six studies presented trend results in their study findings (Bernstein et al 2010;Al-Shaar et al 2020;Iqbal et al 2021;Møller et al 2021;Papier et al 2021;Key et al 2019) and for six studies trends could be estimated with the available estimates (Fraser et al 1992;Haring et al 2014;Nagao et al 2012;Takata et al 2013;Whiteman et al 1999;Saito et al 2020).…”

“…Main analyses were robust to the exclusion of any one study (Table S4, supplementary material), and were unchanged but with wider confidence intervals when using a random effects analysis (RR 1.19, 95%-CI 1.08, 1.30). The summary RR was 1.11 when comparing the highest versus lowest categories of processed meat (95% CI 1.06 to 1.16), Estimates included those for beef only, using pork for Saito et al (2020) given in Table S5, supplementary material. b Adequate adjustment defined as adjusting for at least age, sex, smoking, physical activity and some measure of socioeconomic status (e.g.…”

“…A limitation of this systematic review and meta-analysis is that there were differences in the outcome definitions used in the individual included studies. For instance five of the studies only assessed fatal IHD (Takata et al 2013;Fraser et al 1992;Nagao et al 2012;Whiteman et al 1999;Saito et al 2020). Therefore, it is possible that the lack of inclusion of incident cases in these studies affected the estimates.…”

“…Likewise, the evidence for processed meat has yielded mixed results with most (Micha, Wallace, and Mozaffarian 2010;Bechthold et al 2019;Zeraatkar et al 2019), but not all (Abete et al 2014) studies reporting a positive association with incident IHD (fatal and/or non-fatal). Several recent very large studies of meat intake and IHD risk, in a total of over 1 million adults, have not been included in previous meta-analyses, therefore an updated analysis of this topic is timely (Key et al 2019;Papier et al 2021;Al-Shaar et al 2020;Iqbal et al 2021;Møller et al 2021;Saito et al 2020).…”