Consuming higher amounts of red meat, especially processed varieties, is linked to an increased risk of cognitive decline and dementia.
Replacing red meat with healthier alternatives such as nuts, fish, and poultry not only lowers the risk of dementia but also decelerates cognitive aging, suggesting potential adjustments to dietary guidelines for better brain health.
Dementia Risk and Red Meat Consumption
People who consume more red meat, especially processed varieties like bacon, sausage, and bologna, face a higher risk of cognitive decline and dementia compared to those who eat very little, according to a study published in the January 15, 2025, issue of Neurology, the journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
“Red meat is high in saturated fat and has been shown in previous studies to increase the risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease, which are both linked to reduced brain health,” said study author Dong Wang, MD, ScD, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “Our study found processed red meat may increase the risk of cognitive decline and dementia, but the good news is that it also found that replacing it with healthier alternatives, like nuts, fish and poultry, may reduce a person’s risk.”
Longitudinal Study Design and Demographics
To examine the risk of dementia, researchers included a group of 133,771 people with an average age of 49 who did not have dementia at the start of the study. They were followed up for 43 years. Of this group, 11,173 people developed dementia.
Participants completed a food diary every two to four years, listing what they ate and how often.
Researchers defined processed red meat as bacon, hot dogs, sausages, salami, bologna, and other processed meat products. They defined unprocessed red meat as beef, pork, lamb, and hamburger. A serving of red meat is three ounces, about the size of a deck of cards.
Researchers calculated how much red meat participants ate on average per day.
For processed red meat, they divided participants into three groups. The low group ate an average of fewer than 0.10 servings per day; the medium group ate between 0.10 and 0.24 servings per day; and the high group, 0.25 or more servings per day.
After adjusting for factors such as age, sex, and other risk factors for cognitive decline, researchers found that participants in the high group had a 13% higher risk of developing dementia compared to those in the low group.
For unprocessed red meat, researchers compared people who ate an average of less than one half serving per day to people who ate one or more servings per day and did not find a difference in dementia risk.
Subjective Cognitive Decline and Red Meat
To measure subjective cognitive decline, researchers looked at a different group of 43,966 participants with an average age of 78. Subjective cognitive decline is when a person reports memory and thinking problems before any decline is large enough to show up on standard tests.
The subjective cognitive decline group took surveys rating their own memory and thinking skills twice during the study.
After adjusting for factors such as age, sex, and other risk factors for cognitive decline, researchers found that participants who ate an average of 0.25 servings or more per day of processed red meat had a 14% higher risk of subjective cognitive decline compared to those who ate an average of fewer than 0.10 servings per day.
They also found people who ate one or more servings of unprocessed red meat per day had a 16% higher risk of subjective cognitive decline compared to people who ate less than a half serving per day.
Objective Cognitive Function and Dietary Impact
To measure objective cognitive function, researchers looked at a different group of 17,458 female participants with an average age of 74. Objective cognitive function is how well your brain works to remember, think, and solve problems.
This group took memory and thinking tests four times during the study.
After adjusting for factors such as age, sex, and other risk factors for cognitive decline, researchers found that eating higher processed red meat was associated with faster brain aging in global cognition with 1.61 years with each additional serving per day and in verbal memory with 1.69 years with each additional serving per day.
Potential Benefits of Dietary Substitutions
Finally, researchers found that replacing one daily serving of processed red meat with a serving of nuts or legumes was linked to a 19% lower risk of dementia and 1.37 fewer years of cognitive aging. Substituting processed red meat with fish lowered dementia risk by 28%, while replacing it with chicken reduced the risk by 16%.
“Reducing how much red meat a person eats and replacing it with other protein sources and plant-based options could be included in dietary guidelines to promote cognitive health,” said Wang. “More research is needed to assess our findings in more diverse groups.”
The study’s scope was primarily limited to white healthcare professionals, which means the results may not fully apply to other racial, ethnic, or gender-diverse groups.
Reference: “Long-Term Intake of Red Meat in Relation to Dementia Risk and Cognitive Function in US Adults” by Yuhan Li, Yanping Li, Xiao Gu, Yuxi Liu, Danyue Dong, Jae Hee Kang, Molin Wang, Heather Eliassen, Walter C. Willett, Meir J. Stampfer and Dong Wang, 15 January 2025, Neurology.
DOI: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000210286
The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health.
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2 Comments
Who paid for the study? Also, unless the participants ate exclusively red meat, there’s no possible way that you can make such a bold claim about red meat if there were other variables. ALSO, if it wasn’t in a controlled environment. It’s worthless. People don’t document that well, weight their food, or remember exactly.
Did they control for PA? It is by now a well-established dementia risk, and the major U.S. decline in PA would seem a better explanation for the growing problem of dementia in this country than bacon, et all, given that it is doubtful that the per capita consumption of bacon, et al, has increased that much.
There could well be a parallel here with all those studies warning of the cancer risk of alcohol, a risk which appears to be almost zeroed out with adequate PA. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32406936/
But then again about the last thing anyone in the American medical seems to want to tell Americans is that they need to get up off the sofa – or out of the seat in front of the ‘puter – and move more. It’s much easier to tell them what not do than what they should do.