The Harvard School of Public Health is publishing a study which states that women who reduced their consumption of red meat reduced their risk of heart disease. The 26-year “Nurses’ Health Study” tracked over 84,000 women between the ages of 30 and 55 from 1980 to 2006, it found women who ate two servings of red meat per day had a 30 percent higher risk of developing coronary heart disease than those who ate half a serving per day.
Dr. Adam Bernstein, the study’s first author and post-doctoral research fellow says the data showed that alternative sources of protein reduced the risk of heart disease. One serving of nuts each day resulted in a 30 percent reduction in risk, there was a 24 percent lower risk with one serving of fish, 19 percent lower with one serving of poultry and 13 percent lower risk with one serving of low-fat dairy products each day.
The nurses in the study were asked how often they had consumed a unit or portion of each food from an original list of 61 foods which was expanded to 116 items. During the study, researchers documented 2,210 non-fatal heart attacks and 952 deaths from coronary heart disease. Bernstein says while the study included only women, the findings are likely to apply to men as well.
The study is published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
Shalene McNeill, PhD, RD, Executive Director of Nutrition Research for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association says the study “Has nothing that changes the fact beef is an important part of a healthy diet.” She notes that a couple of months ago the same journal published another study by a Harvard research group “That found no association between red meat and heart disease or diabetes or stroke and it actually looked at more studies than this one study evaluated.”
AUDIO:McNeill talks about the study
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