New Guidelines Challenge Current Red Meat Recommendations

A controversial new set of guideline recommendations published in the Annals of Internal Medicine and created by a panel of experts in the fields of health research methodology, nutritional epidemiology, dietetics, basic and translational research, family medicine, and general internal medicine concludes that adults aged 18 years and older continue their current consumption of red and processed meat, rather than cutting back.

Many current dietary and nutritional guidelines, including the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, suggest limiting the consumption of red and processed meat.

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“These recommendations are, however, primarily based on observational studies that are at high risk for confounding and thus are limited in establishing causal inferences, nor do they report the absolute magnitude of any possible effects. Furthermore, the organizations that produce guidelines did not conduct or access rigorous systematic reviews of the evidence, were limited in addressing conflicts of interest, and did not explicitly address population values and preferences, raising questions regarding adherence to guideline standards for trustworthiness,” the authors wrote.

In order to “produce rigorous evidence-based nutritional recommendations adhering to trustworthiness standards,” the guideline authors developed the Nutritional Recommendations (NutriRECS) international consortium.

They performed 4 systematic reviews focusing on randomized trials and observational studies addressing the health effects of red meat and processed meat consumption and 1 systematic review addressing health-related values and preferences regarding meat consumption.

Overall, they developed the following recommendations:

• Adults should continue current unprocessed red meat consumption (weak recommendation, low-certainty evidence).
• Adults should continue current processed meat consumption (weak recommendation, low-certainty evidence).

Both of the recommendations were passed in 11 to 3 votes, with 3 members of the panel voting to include weak recommendations for the reduction of processed and red meat consumption.

“[The recommendation] indicates that the panel believed that for the majority of individuals, the desirable effects (a potential lowered risk for cancer and cardiometabolic outcomes) associated with reducing meat consumption probably do not outweigh the undesirable effects (impact on quality of life, burden of modifying cultural and personal meal preparation and eating habits),” the authors wrote.

—Michael Potts

Reference:

Johnston BC, Zeraatkar D, Han MA, et al. Unprocessed red meat and processed meat consumption: dietary guideline recommendations from the Nutritional Recommendations (NutriRECS) Consortium [published online October 1, 2019]. Ann Intern Med. DOI: 10.7326/M19-1621.