Fastfood aficionados have been offered one more reason to change their dietary habits – Harvard scientists have reported that a large intake of processed meat, such as hot dogs and bacon, can significantly increase the risk of type 2 diabetes. just-food.com’s Aaron Priel takes a look at the new findings and asks, does this mean we should give up more favourites?
Go deeper with GlobalData
No news is good news for the typical consumer in the world’s largest fastfood nation, and now the worst dietary habits have been proven to encourage the onset of another potentially life threatening disease; type 2 diabetes. A diet packed with hot dogs, bologna and bacon can increase the risk of type 2 diabetes by about 50% in men, according to the findings of new research conducted by US scientists at the Harvard School of Public Health.
The research group analysed the dietary habits of thousands of men across the US and found that those who frequently ate processed meat had a 46% greater probability of developing type 2 diabetes than men who ate less of it..
The disease
Approximately 16 million consumers in the US are thought to have diabetes, and about 90% of the cases are type 2, or adult-onset disease. The American Diabetes Association explains that “in type 2 diabetes, either the body does not produce enough insulin (necessary for the body to be able to use sugar) or the cells ignore the insulin”. This enables glucose to build up in the blood, a process that causes two problems.
US Tariffs are shifting - will you react or anticipate?
Don’t let policy changes catch you off guard. Stay proactive with real-time data and expert analysis.
By GlobalDataImmediately the body’s cells are starved of energy, and ultimately high blood sugar levels can lead to the damage of the kidneys, heart or eyes, or reduced blood circulation. Untreated, experts agree that type 2 diabetes can lead to blindness, kidney failure, limb amputation and in the most extreme cases even death.,
Meanwhile, in the US generally, consumers wolfed 20 billion hot dogs in 2000, at a cost of US$1.6 trillion, according to figures from the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council. The council added that 987 million pounds of beef and pork hot dogs and 83 million pounds of poultry hot dogs were sold at retail stores during 2000. The market for hot dogs in the US, measured in supermarket sales only, was US$1.7bn in 2001.
Foodservice sales of hot dogs meanwhile reached 4.9 million pounds in 2000. According to a Carlson Report release in June 2001, hot dogs are one of the few entrees that increased in food court sales in 2000, with sales growing by nearly 8%.
A matter of moderation
Dr Frank Hu is the senior author of the Harvard group’s study, which was recently published in the journal Diabetes Care, a peer-reviewed journal published by the American Diabetes Association.
Dr Hu insisted: “We are not proposing to ban hot dogs. It’s just a matter of moderation.
“People should reduce the frequency of eating processed meats.”
The scientist added that the big increase in risk for diabetes type 2 came among those who ate processed meats five times or more per week, and some of the subjects ate it every day.
Long term study
The data in this research came from the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, a project that began in 1986 by collecting dietary information from 42,504 men aged 40 to 75, who were classed as healthy, and free of diabetes, heart disease or cancer. The men in the study were followed for 12 years, and the researchers compared the dietary patterns of those who developed type 2 diabetes with the eating habits of those who did not.
Dr Hu said that the results were adjusted for known effects of activities such as smoking, obesity, fat intake and physical activity. “After these adjustments, it was clear that eating abundant hot dogs and other processed meats was an independent risk factor for diabetes,” he concluded.
The Harvard researcher added that eating processed meats five times or more per week is “where we saw that major difference; the effect is dose-related – the more you eat of these foods – the higher the risk”.
Hidden risks?
However, scientists agree that the risk of diabetes may also be affected by other foods that are often consumed in meals featuring processed meats. People seldom eat hot dogs or bologna or bacon alone. The meats are usually accompanied by high fat condiments, such as mayonnaise, and fried side dishes such as French fries and potato chips.
The Harvard research team took into account other dietary factors, but it was not possible to entirely rule them out.
“This result may reflect a typical unhealthy dietary pattern,” Dr Hu commented.
Dr Ruth Kava, Director of Nutrition at the American Council on Science and Health, told CNN that “dietary studies such as this have a typical unhealthy dietary pattern”. She added that the difficulty with this type of study is that one can’t be sure how accurate it is, noting that “seeing a relative risk increase of 46% is only weakly significant biologically”.
This may be the case, and Dr Hu admitted that the findings needed to be confirmed by other research. Nevertheless, he concluded: “The work suggests that research is needed to determine if a link exists between diets high in processed meats and the incidence of heart disease and cancer.”
By Aaron Priel, just-food.com correspondent
