Heme iron from red meat may increase diabetes risk by 26 percent
A new study has found that heme iron found in red meat and other animal products may increase the risk of type 2 diabetes. diabetes by 26 percent compared to non-heme iron found in plant-based foods. The study was published in the journal Nature Metabolism.
Previous studies relied solely on epidemiological data, but in this study, the researchers “integrated multiple layers of information, including conventional metabolic biomarkers and cutting-edge metabolomics,” said senior author Fenglei Wang, a research associate at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in the U.S. Metabolomics is the study of small molecules inside cells and tissues.
Wang said: “This allowed us to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the association between iron intake and type 2 diabetes risk, as well as the potential metabolic pathways underlying this association.”
Researchers said cutting back on red meat and adopting a plant-rich diet may help reduce the risk of diabetes. The findings also raised concerns about the addition of heme iron to increasingly popular plant-based meat alternatives to improve their taste and appearance.
For the study, researchers used data from 36 years of dietary reports from more than 200,000 adults, about 80 percent of whom were women. Participants were included in the Nurses’ Health Studies I and II and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, which looked at risk factors for major chronic diseases.
The researchers looked at the participants’ different forms of iron intake, including heme iron, non-heme iron, and iron through supplements, and their type 2 diabetes status. In a smaller group of more than 37,000 participants, the team examined the biological processes underlying the link between heme iron and type 2 diabetes.
To do this, participants’ plasma metabolic biomarker data were analyzed, including those related to insulin, blood sugar, lipids and inflammation levels. The researchers then examined the metabolomic profiles of more than 9,000 participants, meaning plasma levels of small molecule metabolites, which are substances derived from bodily processes such as the breakdown of food or chemicals.
The authors wrote: “We found that among different types of iron intake, only higher heme iron intake was associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes.”
They also found that heme iron accounted for more than half of the risk of type 2 diabetes associated with unprocessed red meat and a moderate proportion of the risk of several dietary patterns associated with type 2 diabetes. The authors further said that “we observed that higher heme iron intake was associated with unfavorable plasma biomarker profiles in the domains of insulinemia, lipids, inflammation, iron stores, and metabolites correlated with type 2 diabetes.”
(With contributions from PTI)
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