Is Red Meat Bad for Your Heart? It May Depend on Who Funded the Study.

Eat|Is Red Meat Bad for Your Heart? It May Depend on Who Funded the Study.

In a review published last week in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, scientists came to a concerning conclusion. Red meat appeared healthier in studies that were funded by the red meat industry.

Of course, this is not surprising to anyone familiar with nutrition research, which often has conflicts of interest because of a lack of federal funding. But it is yet another example of how industry-linked studies might shape the way people understand, and potentially misunderstand, the health consequences of what they eat.

Past research funded by the sugar industry, for instance, has downplayed the relationship between sugar and health conditions like obesity and heart disease. And studies funded by the alcohol industry have suggested that moderate drinking could be part of a healthy diet.

Miguel López Moreno, a researcher at Francisco de Vitoria University in Spain who led the new analysis, said in an email that he wanted to know if similar issues were happening with the research on unprocessed red meat. Processed meats like bacon and sausage have consistently been linked with heart disease risk, he said, but the evidence for unprocessed red meats like steaks and pork chops has been “far more mixed.”

The question is timely, as influential people like the U.S. health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and podcasters like Joe Rogan and Lex Fridman have spoken favorably about meat-heavy diets and downplayed the health risks of saturated fats — to public health experts’ concern.

We’ve long known that eating saturated fats, which are abundant in red meat, has been associated with cardiovascular disease. So what does this new finding tell us about how financial interests can shape how people understand what’s good for them?