Eating red meat increases the chances of dying prematurely, according to a large federal study offering powerful new evidence that a diet that regularly includes steaks, burgers and pork chops is hazardous to your health. The study of more than 500,000 middle-age and elderly Americans found that those who consumed the equivalent of about a small hamburger every day were more than 30 percent more likely to die in the following 10 years, mostly from heart disease and cancer. Processed meats also increased the risk. The new study is the first large examination of the relationship between eating meat and overall mortality. In contrast, routine consumption of fish, chicken, turkey and other poultry decreased the risk of death slightly, the study found. Although pork often is promoted as ‘white meat,’ it is believed to increase the risk for cancer because of its iron content, said Rashmi Sinha of the National Cancer Institute, who led the study published today in the Archives of Internal Medicine. ‘This would be the Rolls-Royce of studies on this topic,’ said Barry Popkin, a professor of global nutrition at the University of North Carolina, who wrote an accompanying editorial. There […]