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Eating bacon and deli meats could significantly increase dementia risk, new study finds
A new study suggests that eating bacon and deli meats could significantly increase dementia risk and instead, you should swap out fry-ups for foods like nuts, beans, and peas.
Recent Alzheimer’s disease research indicates that eating processed red meat could be a significant risk factor for dementia and results showed that each additional daily serving was linked to�an extra 1.6 years of aging.
Link between red meats like bacon and dementia
Research reported at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC) 2024, in Philadelphia and published online in PR Newswire assessed the association between red meat and dementia.
Dementia is not a specific disease but rather a general term for the impaired ability to remember, think, or make decisions that interfere with everyday activities, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention explains. Dementia is caused by damage to or loss of nerve cells and their connections in the brain.
The researchers observed more than 130,000 participants and followed them for up to 43 years, assessing the participants’ diet every two to four years based on their answers to food-frequency questionnaires that asked how often they ate a serving of processed red meat and nuts and legumes.
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Legumes are rich in protein, dietary fiber, low GI (low-glycemic index) carbohydrates and several micronutrients and include foods like beans, peas, lentils, and chickpeas.
Processed red meat examined in the study includes bacon (two slices), hot dog (one), sausage or kielbasa (2 ounces or two small links), salami, bologna or other processed meat sandwiches.
Nuts and legumes included peanut butter (1 tablespoon), peanuts, walnuts or other nuts (1 ounce), soy milk (8-ounce glass), string beans, beans or lentils, peas or lima beans (1/2 cup), or tofu or soy protein.
Eating two servings a week raises the risk
Out of the 130,000 participants in the Nurses’ Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, the researchers identified 11,173 dementia cases.
The study suggests that eating around two servings per week of processed red meat raises the risk of dementia by 14% compared to those who eat less than approximately three servings a month.
Swapping a serving of processed red meat for one serving of nuts and legumes every day may lower the risk of dementia by 20%.
The researchers also assessed cognition using the Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status for 17,458 study participants and determined that each additional daily serving of processed red meat was linked to cognitive aging.
Cognitive aging is a natural process in which older adults typically experience a decline in many functions.
Each additional daily serving of processed red meat was linked to an extra 1.61 years of cognitive aging for global cognition (overall cognitive function including language, executive function, and processing) as well as an extra 1.69 years of cognitive aging in verbal memory (the ability to recall and understand words and sentences).
