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Epidemiology

Meat consumption in relation to mortality from cardiovascular disease among Japanese men and women

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume 66, pages 687–693 (2012)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Background/objectives:

Although high or low (no) meat consumption was associated with elevated or reduced mortality from cardiovascular disease, respectively, few studies have investigated the association between moderate meat consumption and cardiovascular disease. We aimed to evaluate the associations between moderate meat consumption and cardiovascular disease mortality.

Subjects/methods:

We conducted a prospective cohort study of 51 683 Japanese (20 466 men and 31 217 women) aged 40–79 years living in all of Japan (The Japan Collaborative Cohort Study; JACC Study). Consumptions of meat (beef, pork, poultry, liver and processed meat) were assessed via a food frequency questionnaire administrated at baseline survey. Hazard ratios (HRs) of mortality from cardiovascular disease were estimated from Cox proportional hazards regression models according to quintiles of meat consumption after adjustment for potential confounding variables.

Results:

During 820 076 person-years of follow-up, we documented 2685 deaths due to total cardiovascular disease including 537 ischemic heart diseases and 1209 strokes. The multivariable HRs (95% confidence interval) for the highest versus lowest quintiles of meat consumption (77.6 versus 10.4 g/day) among men were 0.66 (0.45–0.97) for ischemic heart disease, 1.10 (0.84–1.43) for stroke and 1.00 (0.84–1.20) for total cardiovascular disease. The corresponding HRs (59.9 versus 7.5 g/day) among women were 1.22 (0.81–1.83), 0.91 (0.70–1.19) and 1.07 (0.90–1.28). The associations were similar when the consumptions of red meat, poultry, processed meat and liver were examined separately.

Conclusion:

Moderate meat consumption, up to ∼100 g/day, was not associated with increased mortality from ischemic heart disease, stroke or total cardiovascular disease among either gender.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by grants-in-aid for scientific research from the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture of Japan (Monbusho), Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (Monbu-kagakusho); grant numbers: 61010076, 62010074, 63010074, 1010068, 2151065, 3151064, 4151063, 5151069, 6279102, 11181101, 17015022, 18014011, 14207019 and 19390174 to the JACC Study. We express our sincere appreciation to Dr Kunio Aoki, Professor Emeritus, Nagoya University School of Medicine and a former chairperson of the JACC Study, to Dr Haruo Sugano, the former director of the Cancer Institute, Tokyo, who greatly contributed to the initiation of the JACC Study, and to Dr Yoshiyuki Ohno, Professor Emeritus, Nagoya University School of Medicine, who was also a former chairperson of the study. We also thank Dr Tomoyuki Kitagawa of the Cancer Institute of the Japanese Foundation for Cancer Research and a former chairperson of Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Area ‘Cancer’, for his valuable support of this study. All members of the JACC Study are listed in http://www.aichi-medu.ac.jp/jacc/member.html.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social and Environmental Medicine, Public Health, Osaka University, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka, Japan

    M Nagao & H Iso

  2. Department of Public Health, Dokkyo Medical University School of Medicine, Shimotsugagun-Mibu, Japan

    M Nagao

  3. Department of Public Health Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan

    K Yamagishi

  4. Department of Food Science and Nutrition, School of Human Science and Environment, University of Hyogo, Himeji, Japan

    C Date

  5. Department of Public Health, Aichi Medical University School of Medicine, Aichi, Japan

    A Tamakoshi

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  1. M Nagao
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  4. C Date
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Correspondence to H Iso.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Contributors: MN, HI, CD and AT designed the research; HI, KY and AT conducted the research; MN analyzed the data; MN and HI wrote the paper; KY, CD and AT made critical revision and HI had primary responsibility for the final content. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Nagao, M., Iso, H., Yamagishi, K. et al. Meat consumption in relation to mortality from cardiovascular disease among Japanese men and women. Eur J Clin Nutr 66, 687–693 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/ejcn.2012.6

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