New study finds that eating a small slice of bacon a day increases the risk of dementia by 44 percent.
A study of data from 500,000 people at the University of Leeds (UK) found that eating 25 grams of processed meat products a day, equivalent to a small slice of bacon a day, increased the risk of developing dementia (also known as dementia) by 44 percent.
However, the study also showed that consuming 50 grams of unprocessed red meat such as beef, pork or wagyu beef per day had a protective effect, reducing the risk of dementia by 19 percent.
The researchers came up with these results after analyzing the dietary habits and disease information of 493,888 Britons between the ages of 40 and 69 from the British Biobank database (Biobank).
Study leader Huifeng Zhang said, “Dietary changes can play a role in the increasing prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease worldwide. Our study provides new evidence for a link between the consumption of processed meat products and a range of non-communicable diseases.”
The data included six levels of frequency and habits of meat consumption among surveyed subjects, including never, once a day, and multiple times. The data, collected between 2006 and 2010, did not specifically categorize survey respondents by whether they were vegetarian, although some did report that they did not eat red meat.
A return visit to this cohort, which averaged 8 years, showed that 2,896 people developed Alzheimer’s disease. These people were generally older, less well-off, less educated, had a smoking habit, were less active, had had a stroke, or had a Family member with dementia. In the group surveyed, more men than women had dementia.
The study showed that although the factor of having a gene for the disease would increase the risk of the disease by 3 to 6 times, the increased risk of the disease by the factor of eating processed meat products frequently was the same for the surveyed subjects whether they carried the gene for the disease or not.
People with higher proportions of processed meat products in their diets were more likely to be male, to have lower educational attainment, to smoke, to be obese, to have lower intakes of vegetables and fruits, and to have higher overall Food intakes of energy, protein and fat.
The study says people have previously linked meat eating habits to dementia risk, but this is the first large-scale, long Time span study to link meat product classification and intake grading to disease risk.
There are currently about 50 million people with dementia worldwide, with about 10 million new cases each year. Of these, Alzheimer’s disease (Alzheimer’s) accounts for 50% to 70% and vascular dementia for about 25%. Vascular dementia, also known as multi-infarct dementia, is a series of brain infarcts caused by vascular disease. Both genetic and environmental factors influence the development of these diseases, in addition to diet and lifestyle habits also play a role.
Any exploration of dementia risk factors could help reduce the incidence of this disease of aging,” said Janet Cade, the study’s supervising professor. This study is a first step toward understanding whether risk can be influenced by controlling diet.”
The study was published March 20 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
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