New study highlighted processed meat health risks

A large-scale study involving around half a million men and women has revealed a link between eating processed meat and a heightened risk of premature death.

The research, which appeared in the medical journal BMC Medicine, involved ten countries and 23 centres in Europe, concluding that people who eat a lot of processed meat are more likely to suffer from cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Men and women who ate the most processed meat tended to eat the fewest fruit and vegetables and were more likely to smoke and consume a large amount of alcohol.

It was also shown that a person's chances of premature death increased with the amount of processed meat eaten, even after correcting for confounding variables where possible, though eating small amounts of red meat was shown to be beneficial.

Study leader Professor Sabine Rohrmann of the University of Zurich said: "Overall, we estimate that three percent of premature deaths each year could be prevented if people ate less than 20g processed meat per day."

The British Heart Foundation responded to these findings by saying that they underline the importance of maintaining a healthy and balanced diet to avoid cardiovascular problems later in life.