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Diet and food › Red Meat, Cancer and the Heart › Studies

Randomized trial · measured lab tests or safety

A 4-week trial in 113 adults: red and white meat gave higher LDL cholesterol

Bergeron and colleagues · The American journal of clinical nutrition · 2019

Original title: Effects of red meat, white meat, and nonmeat protein sources on atherogenic lipoprotein measures in the context of low compared with high saturated fat intake: a randomized controlled trial.

Under review. A person has not yet checked this summary against the paper. It is written from the PubMed abstract. Until a person checks it, search engines are asked not to list this page.

What the study found

Points to harm

LDL (bad) cholesterol was higher with red and white meat than with nonmeat protein (P < 0.0001). Red and white meat did not differ. Heart disease itself was not measured.

The study at a glance

Type of study
Randomized trial
Who or what was studied
113 people · Healthy men and women aged 21 to 65
What was tested
Diets with red meat, white meat, or no meat protein, 4 weeks each, with high or low saturated fat
What it measured
Lab tests or markers
How long
4 weeks
Trial registration
NCT01427855
Who has a stake
No disclosure in PubMed
No disclosure in PubMed; funded by US National Institutes of Health.
Journal
The American journal of clinical nutrition, 2019
Source
PubMed record 31161217. This page is based on the abstract only.

How much this study counts

  • ✓Randomized: people were put into groups by chance, so the groups start out alike.
  • •Medium size: 113 people.
  • –Short: 4 weeks. Longer-term effects are unknown.
  • –Measured lab tests or markers, which stand in for cancer, heart disease and death. A better marker does not always mean better health.
  • •The PubMed record has no conflict-of-interest statement.
  • •Summarized from the PubMed abstract only. The full paper may hold details the abstract leaves out.

✓ Strength– Limit• Note

These points come from fixed rules about the type of study, its size and length, what it measured, and who has a stake. Every study on Digestery gets the same rules.

Where this study sits

Each dot is one on-topic paper on this question. Steps near the top answer the question more directly.

↑ Stronger evidence

  1. Trials in people: cancer and heart disease

    0

    Not done yet. This is the step that would answer the question.

  2. Trials in people: other measures

    0

    None among the papers we read.

  3. Trials in people: lab tests or safety

    6

    2 benefit, 4 harm

    ↑ This study is the ringed dot

  4. Population studies

    12

    1 benefit, 2 mixed, 1 no difference, 8 harm

  5. Blood levels and genes

    0

    None among the papers we read.

↓ Weaker evidence

  • Points to benefit
  • Mixed
  • No difference
  • No direction
  • Points to harm

How it fits with the other research

The short answer to “Does red meat raise cancer and heart disease risk?”

Linked to higher risk, especially processed meat.

Confidence: low. Based on 30 on-topic papers.

Read the full answer

Of the other 5 papers on the same step: 2 benefit, 3 harm. This one found harm. It agrees with most of them.

Other papers on the same step

See all 30 studies on this question

How this page was made

Label

First read of the abstract
Claude Sonnet
Independent second read
Claude Haiku
Differences settled
The reviewer corrected 1 field after reading the abstract. Claude Opus 5.5.
Headline
Claude Sonnet, from the checked study record. A script checked its numbers and wording.
Numbers
Checked against the abstract by a script
“How much this study counts”
Fixed rules, the same for every study
Source check by a person
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