Cured meats and processed meat: they increase cancers and cardiovascular risk
Published on 5/4/2013
The study published in the journal Biomedical Genomics is titled European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition, and it served the team at the University of Zurich led by Prof. Sabine Rohrmann to determine how and by how much cardiovascular risk and the incidence of various forms of cancer could be reduced by lowering the daily consumption of so-called "processed" meat below 20 grams.
The data collected in the European study, based on a sample of over half a million people and spread over a survey period of more than 13 years, and therefore quite reliable, reveal that a daily consumption of 160 grams of processed meat (cured meats and equivalents) would correspond to a 44% increase in the likelihood of cases of premature death, compared with those who limit their consumption of processed meat to just 20 grams.
At the root of this link would be the fats, salt and preservatives (nitrates) that have long been considered enemies of health. Nevertheless, the data open up interesting considerations: that it is not correct to demonise cured and processed products, since these have (like all meat) always been part of the human diet and constitute a "valuable source of certain vitamins, minerals and high-quality proteins useful for health".
The reference to the Italian food pyramid therefore appears appropriate, as it reserves for processed meat a place in Italians' diet in modest quantities, equal to about 50 grams a week, without however calling for its total elimination from the table.