Red meat doesn’t have a good reputation when it comes to heart health. Foods like beef and steak are high in cholesterol, a known risk factor for cardiovascular disease.
So a new study found reducing your red meat intake even a little bit helps lower your risk of high cholesterol and heart disease.
Writing in the journal Circulation, researchers say if you eat red meat more than once a day you’ll help your heart by swapping out one serving of meat with a less fattening food, like nuts or fish.
In the study, women who eat two servings of red meat each day have a 30% higher risk of cardiovascular disease compared to women who eat roughly three to four servings per week.
The researchers call it a “pretty dramatic increase,” highlighting the benefit of moderation and not overeating red meat.
Other findings show women eating one serving of beef each day raised their risk of heart disease by 8%, compared to who women rarely or never eat red meat. Other foods heightened risk more severely. Eating hotdogs once or twice a month raised risk 35%, bacon 41%, and hotdogs 42%.
Red meat has also been linked to a variety of cancers, such as prostate cancer, bladder cancer, colon cancer, stomach cancer, and breast cancer.
Image credit: elecnix
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