This Unlikely Food Was Just Linked to An Increased Risk of Type 2 Diabetes In A Massive Study

Years of research point to a link between meat and type 2 diabetes. But these studies aren’t perfect — many of them focus on North American and European populations, leaving out more diverse groups of people. And, they tend to stick to red and processed meat while ignoring other animal products like poultry. A new study strived to fill in those gaps, and found that poultry isn’t the healthy alternative it’s often considered.

Published on August 20 in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, a new paper led by researchers from the University of Cambridge offers even more insight on the link between meat consumption and type 2 diabetes, which affects more than 500 million people worldwide. According to a 2023 paper also published in The Lancet, this condition is projected to affect 1 billion people by 2050. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the largest meta-analysis on the topic to date, including data from nearly 2 million people.

This observational study involved 31 groups of people across 20 countries — including the Americas, the eastern Mediterranean, Europe, south Asia, and west Pacific and east Asia — making up a total of almost 2 million people. The authors stipulate that it remains to be seen whether their findings can be generalized to the Middle East region and the continent of Africa. The team analyzed data on factors such as age, gender, health-related behaviors, and body mass index that came from the global InterConnect project, which is part of the University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine’s Medical Research Council Unit. InterConnect is a repository of global data for diabetes and obesity research.

Of 1,966,444 adults, the authors identified 107,271 incident cases of type 2 diabetes during a median follow-up of 10 years. A heftier diet of each of three types of meat — processed meat, unprocessed red meat, and poultry — was linked to an increased likelihood of developing the condition. The team found that consuming 50 grams of processed meat, or about two slices of ham, per day was associated with a 15-percent higher risk of developing the disease over 10 years, whereas 100 grams of unprocessed red meat, or a small steak, per day was associated with a 10-percent higher risk. On the other hand, 100 grams of poultry daily had an 8-percent higher risk.

Poultry has long been considered a healthier alternative to red and processed meat. But, as the authors point out, there’s been little to no studies actually finding this assumption. In fact, the results of the study went against what the researchers originally hypothesized: that poultry would have no association with type 2 diabetes. So while many more studies will be needed to better understand where poultry sits on the health spectrum, its likely your grilled chicken is not as benign as we all once thought.