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Population study: followed a group

In 83,304 Norwegian women: processed meat linked to higher death risk, red meat not

Enget Jensen and colleagues · The British journal of nutrition · 2024

Original title: Replacing red and processed meat with lean or fatty fish and all-cause and cause-specific mortality in Norwegian women. The Norwegian Women and Cancer Study (NOWAC): a prospective cohort study.

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What the study found

Mixed

Processed meat (> 30 g/d) was linked to higher death risk, while red meat was neutral or beneficial. In high processed meat eaters, swapping 20 g/d for lean fish went with lower all-cause death (HR 0·92, 95 % CI 0·89, 0·96).

The study at a glance

Type of study
Population study: followed a group
Who or what was studied
83,304 people · Norwegian women followed about 21 years; 9420 died
What was tested
Eating red and processed meat, and swapping 20 g/d of it for fish
What it measured
The question itself: cancer, heart disease and death
Who has a stake
No disclosure in PubMed
No disclosure in PubMed.
Journal
The British journal of nutrition, 2024
Source
PubMed record 37694448. This page is based on the abstract only.

How much this study counts

  • –Shows a link, not a cause: people chose their own habits, and other differences between them may explain the result.
  • ✓Followed people over time, so habits were recorded before the outcome happened.
  • ✓Large: 83,304 people.
  • ✓Measured the question itself: cancer, heart disease and death.
  • •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

  4. Population studies

    12

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

    ↑ This study is the ringed dot

  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 11 papers on the same step: 1 benefit, 1 mixed, 1 no difference, 8 harm. This one found mixed. It differs from 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 two reads differed. The reviewer checked the abstract and kept the first read. 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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