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Red meat consumption and all-cause and cardiovascular mortality: results from the UK Biobank study

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Abstract

Purpose

To investigate the prospective associations between red meat consumption and all-cause and cardiovascular diseases (CVD) mortality, and to assess the modification effects of lifestyle and genetic risk factors.

Methods

180,642 individuals free of CVD or cancer were enrolled from 2006 to 2010 and followed up to 2018 in the UK Biobank. Information on demographics, lifestyles, and medical history was collected through a baseline touchscreen questionnaire. The information on diet was collected through a single touchscreen food-frequency questionnaire. A total of ten single-nucleotide polymorphisms were used to calculate the genetic risk score (GRS) of trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO), a gut microbiota metabolite from red meat. Adjusted Cox proportional hazard regression models were used to assess the association of red meat consumption with mortality.

Results

We documented 3596 deaths [655 CVD deaths, 285 coronary heart disease (CHD) deaths, and 149 stroke deaths] during median 8.6 years of follow-up. Compared with the lowest red meat intake (< 1.5 times/week), the highest red meat intake (≥ 3.0 times/week) was associated with a 20%, 53%, and 101% elevated risk for CVD, CHD, and stroke mortality (P for trend = 0.04, 0.007, and 0.02, respectively), but not all-cause mortality. We found that the associations between red meat intake and mortality were not modified by dietary and lifestyle factors, as well as TMAO GRS. In addition, substitution analyses showed that a decrease in red meat consumption and an increase in the consumption of poultry or cereal was significantly associated with 9%–16% lower CVD or CHD mortality risk.

Conclusion

Our results indicated that red meat consumption was associated with higher risks of CVD, CHD, and stroke mortality, and the associations were not modified by lifestyle and genetic risk factors. Replacing red meat by poultry or cereal was related to lower risks of CVD and CHD mortality.

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Funding

This work was supported by grants from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (HL071981, HL034594, HL126024), the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (DK115679, DK091718, DK100383, DK078616), and the Fogarty International Center (TW010790). LQ is a recipient of the American Heart Association Scientist Development Award (0730094 N). LQ is also supported by NIGMS P20GM109036. MW is supported by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (BX2021021).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Peking University Health Science Center, Beijing, China

    Mengying Wang & Yonghua Hu

  2. Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, 70112, USA

    Mengying Wang, Hao Ma, Qiying Song, Tao Zhou, Yoriko Heianza & Lu Qi

  3. Department of Maternal and Child Health, School of Public Health, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Qiying Song

  4. Channing Division of Network Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    JoAnn E. Manson & Lu Qi

  5. Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

    JoAnn E. Manson

  6. Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    JoAnn E. Manson

  7. Department of Nutrition, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

    Lu Qi

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  1. Mengying Wang
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Correspondence to Lu Qi.

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Wang, M., Ma, H., Song, Q. et al. Red meat consumption and all-cause and cardiovascular mortality: results from the UK Biobank study. Eur J Nutr 61, 2543–2553 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00394-022-02807-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00394-022-02807-0

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