CHICAGO - The largest study of its kind finds that older Americans who eat large amounts of red meat and processed meats face a greater risk of death from heart disease and cancer.

The federal study of more than half a million men and women bolsters prior evidence of the health risks of diets laden with red meat like hamburger and processed meats like hot dogs, bacon and cold cuts.

Calling the increased risk modest, lead author Rashmi Sinha of the National Cancer Institute said the findings support the advice of several health groups to limit red and processed meat intake to decrease cancer risk.

The findings appear in Monday's Archives of Internal Medicine.

Over 10 years, eating the equivalent of a quarter-pound hamburger daily gave men in the study a 22 percent higher risk of dying of cancer and a 27 percent higher risk of dying of heart disease. That's compared to those who ate the least red meat, just 5 ounces per week.

Women who ate large amounts of red meat had a 20 percent higher risk of dying of cancer and a 50 percent higher risk of dying of heart disease than women who ate less.

For processed meats, the increased risks for large quantities were slightly lower overall than for red meat. The researchers compared deaths in the people with the highest intakes to deaths in people with the lowest to calculate the increased risk.

People whose diets contained more white meat like chicken and fish had lower risks of death.

The researchers surveyed more than 545,000 people, ages 50 to 71 years old, on their eating habits, then followed them for 10 years. There were more than 70,000 deaths during that time.

Study subjects were recruited from AARP members, a group that's healthier than other similarly aged Americans. That means the findings may not apply to all groups, Sinha said. The study relied on people's memory of what they ate, which can be faulty.

In the analysis, the researchers took into account other risk factors such as smoking, family history of cancer and high body mass index.

In an accompanying editorial, Barry Popkin, director of the Interdisciplinary Obesity Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, wrote that reducing meat intake would have benefits beyond improved health.

芝加哥信息——一同類研究之中的一項最大研究發現，吃大量紅色肉類和加工肉類美國老年人面臨更大的死于心臟病和癌癥的風險。

這項超過 50 萬男性和女性的聯合研究，支持以前關于富含紅色肉類的飲食例如漢堡包，以及加工肉類例如熱狗、熏肉和冷盤的健康風險證據。

在聲明增加的危險不大的同時，國家癌癥研究所的主要作者 Rashmi Sinha 說，調查結果支持一些衛生團體提出的限制紅色肉類和加工肉類的攝入量以減少癌癥風險的意見。

這一調查結果刊登在周一的‘內科檔案’雜志上。

在這項研究中，10 年以上每天吃相當于四分之一磅漢堡包的男子，具有高百分之二十二的癌癥死亡風險以及高百分之二十七的心臟病死亡風險。這是與那些吃極少紅色肉類，僅僅每周 5 盎司的人相比較的。

吃大量紅色肉類的比吃少量紅色肉類的婦女具有高百分之二十的癌癥死亡風險和高百分之五十的心臟病死亡風險。

對于加工肉類，大量攝取所增加的風險略低于紅色肉類的總體情況。研究人員是通過比較最高攝入量的人們的死亡數和最低攝入量的人們的死亡數與來計算風險增加量的。

食用含有更多白色肉類像雞肉和魚肉的人，死亡的風險較低。

研究人員調查了超過 54.5 萬年齡 50 至 71 歲的人，調查他們的飲食習慣，然后跟蹤了他們 10 年。有超過 7 萬人在這段時間內死去。

研究對象是從 AARP （美國退休人員協會）的成員中招募的，一個比其他同樣年齡的美國人健康一些的群體。這意味著，這項研究結果可能并不適用于所有的群體，Sinha 說。這項研究依賴于人們的記憶，他們都吃些什么，這可能是有誤差的。

研究人員在分析中考慮了其它的風險因素，例如吸煙、家族癌癥病史和高身體質量指數。

在附隨的一篇社論中，教堂山北卡羅萊納大學跨學科肥胖中心的主任 Barry Popkin 寫道，減少肉類攝入量具有的裨益超出健康狀況的改善。