Besides being good for the planet and kinder to animals, eating less red meat is also better for your health. Reducing consumption of red and processed meat could reduce your risk of diabetes, cancer and heart disease. These diseases share risk factors with dementia, including the most common type, Alzheimer’s disease.

Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia are the UK’s leading cause of death. With Alzheimer’s, memory problems are often the first issue to become apparent and these are later followed by other cognitive impairments significantly affecting daily life and social interactions.

A large US-based study investigated different foods and their associated dementia risk in over 133,000 healthcare professionals who did not have dementia when the study started. They were tracked for over four decades. In that time, just over 11,000 developed dementia.

Eating processed red meat (such as sausages, bacon, hotdogs and salami) was linked to a 16% higher risk of dementia and a faster rate of cognitive ageing. Eating about two servings of processed red meat a week raised the risk of dementia by 14% compared with those who ate less than about three servings a month. (A serving is a piece of meat roughly the size of a deck of playing cards – around 85g.)

If people substituted processed red meat protein for that found in nuts, tofu or beans, they could reduce their dementia risk by 19%, the study found. The rate of cognitive ageing was also reduced.

In this same sample, eating less red and processed meat was shown to substantially reduce the risk of death from cancer and heart disease. The researchers estimated that almost one in ten deaths could have been prevented if everyone had eaten less than 42g of red meat (less than half a serving) a day throughout the study.

Red or processed meat can result in high levels of “bad fats” in the blood because of its saturated fat and cholesterol content. This can result in fatty deposits building up in the blood vessels, explaining some of the association with heart disease deaths.

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For the full article by Professor Eef Hogervorst and Dr Emma O'Donnell visit The Conversation.