Dementia risk: Processed meat increases the risk

It is well known that eating too much red meat is detrimental to health. Processed meat in particular appears to pose a particular risk.

Eating too much meat can be harmful to your health. This includes beef, veal and pork. The German Nutrition Society recommends eating no more than 300 grams of meat and sausage per week. In reality, however, Germans eat about three times that amount.

In particular, processed meat that has been treated by salting, fermenting, smoking or curing is classified as carcinogenic by the World Health Organization. US researchers have now discovered another consequence that the consumption of these products can have.

The study included data from 133,000 participants (average age: 49 years) who were observed for 43 years. Of these, almost 11,200 developed dementia .

The result: people who ate a quarter portion or more of processed meat per day had a 13 percent higher risk of developing dementia.

The researchers divided the subjects into three consumption groups and assumed a full portion of red or processed meat of 85 grams. Those who had a low consumption ate less than a tenth of this amount daily. A tenth to a quarter was considered an average amount. Those who ate more than a quarter of a full portion size (i.e., about two slices of bacon or a sausage) had a high consumption.

And they had a 13 percent higher risk of dementia than those who consumed less. The researchers also found that an additional daily portion of processed red meat was associated with an average 1.6 years faster aging of the brain. In other words, brain function declined to the extent that they were already a year and a half older.

Anyone who wants to avoid this should think about alternatives. If a daily portion of processed meat is replaced with a portion of nuts or pulses, the risk of dementia is reduced by 19 percent. Replacing it with fish reduces it by 28 percent, and replacing it with chicken by 16 percent.

"It's not surprising that processed red meat can have negative effects on brain health. Processed red meat is often high in fat, sodium and sugar, which are already known to have negative effects on the body," neurologist Jasmin Dao told the journal Healthline.

Study author Dong Wang explains: "Red meat is high in saturated fat and has been shown in previous studies to increase the risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease, both of which are linked to worsening brain health." Their study found that processed red meat can increase the risk of cognitive decline and dementia. "But the good news is that it has also been found that replacing it with healthier alternatives such as nuts, fish and poultry can lower a person's risk."