Unprocessed Red Meat and Processed Meat Consumption: Dietary Guideline Recommendations From the Nutritional Recommendations (NutriRECS) Consortium

This guideline suggests that there is very little evidence that limiting intakes of red meat and processed meats cause significant harm to the person. Environmental harms are not considered. James W. Mold, MD, MPH

Free full text

View

DESCRIPTION:

Dietary guideline recommendations require consideration of the certainty in the evidence, the magnitude of potential benefits and harms, and explicit consideration of people's values and preferences. A set of recommendations on red meat and processed meat consumption was developed on the basis of 5 de novo systematic reviews that considered all of these issues.

METHODS:

The recommendations were developed by using the Nutritional Recommendations (NutriRECS) guideline development process, which includes rigorous systematic review methodology, and GRADE methods to rate the certainty of evidence for each outcome and to move from evidence to recommendations. A panel of 14 members, including 3 community members, from 7 countries voted on the final recommendations. Strict criteria limited the conflicts of interest among panel members. Considerations of environmental impact or animal welfare did not bear on the recommendations. Four systematic reviews addressed the health effects associated with red meat and processed meat consumption, and 1 systematic review addressed people's health-related values and preferences regarding meat consumption.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

The panel suggests that adults continue current unprocessed red meat consumption (weak recommendation, low-certainty evidence). Similarly, the panel suggests adults continue current processed meat consumption (weak recommendation, low-certainty evidence).

PRIMARY FUNDING SOURCE:

None. (PROSPERO 2017: CRD42017074074; PROSPERO 2018: CRD42018088854)

Author/s:

Johnston, BC, Zeraatkar, D, Han, MA, Vernooij RWM, Valli, C, El Dib, R, Marshall, C, Stover, PJ, Fairweather-Taitt, S, Wojcik, G, Bhatia, F, de Souza, R, Brotons, C, Meerpohl, JJ, Patel, CJ, Djulbegovic, B, Alonso-Coello, P, Bala, MM, Guyatt, GH