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

Randomized trial · measured lab tests or safety

6-day trial in 41 adults: plant-based meat gave lower LDL cholesterol than red meat

Ferreira and colleagues · Scientific reports · 2026

Original title: Processed plant-based meat-supplemented diet versus red meat-based supplemented diet randomized cross-over trial Finding Optimal Oral Diet-1 (FOOD-1) trial.

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What the study found

Points to harm

A blood chemical linked to heart risk (TMAO) was lower on the plant-based meat diet: -0.61 log units (95% CI -0.90 to -0.33, P < 0.001). LDL cholesterol was lower too, by -6.0 mg/dL; body weight was higher by + 0.6 kg.

The study at a glance

Type of study
Randomized trial
Who or what was studied
41 people · Adults, median age 51, a third with artery disease
What was tested
Diet with red meat vs diet with plant-based meat, 6 days each
What it measured
Lab tests or markers
How long
1 week
Trial registration
NCT04510324
Who has a stake
No stake declared
Authors report ties to drug companies, none to meat or plant-based meat makers.
Journal
Scientific reports, 2026
Source
PubMed record 41813762. 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.
  • –Small: 41 people. Small trials can miss real effects or find chance ones.
  • –Short: 1 week. 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.
  • ✓No competing interests declared.
  • •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 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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