Grilled meat may increase risk of blood pressure
That tasty serving of grilled beef, chicken or fish may come with another unwelcome health concern.
Now, researchers say cooking red and white meat over an open-flame or at high temperatures — including grilling, barbecuing, broiling and roasting — might modestly increase a person’s risk of developing high blood pressure. The results were presented Wednesday at an American Heart Association meeting.
“Our findings imply that avoiding the use of open-flame and/or high-temperature cooking methods may help reduce hypertension risk among individuals who consume red meat, chicken or fish regularly,” Gang Liu, the study’s lead author and a research fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told TODAY.
Avoiding cooked meat that’s well done or charred may also help to reduce the risk, he added.
High blood pressure — which affects almost half of the U.S adult population is sometimes called the “silent killer” because it often has no symptoms and can lead to heart attacks and stroke.
For the study, researchers followed 32,925 women from the Nurses’ Health Study; 53,852 women from the Nurses’ Health Study II, and 17,104 men from the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study. None had high blood pressure, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer at the start.
Over the next 12 to 16 years, 37,123 of the participants developed high blood pressure.
It’s not clear why that’s happening, but some studies suggest cooking meat at high-temperatures could lead certain chemicals to form, inducing oxidative stress, inflammation and insulin resistance in animals, and possibly leading to an elevated risk of developing high blood pressure, Liu said.
It also not clear whether this the same mechanism involved in the link between grilled meats and cancer, he added. There’s no conclusive evidence that grilled meats can cause cancer in humans. But processed meat, such as bacon or hot dogs, does cause cancer, and red meat probably does, too, a World Health Organization group announced in 2015.The latest findings are a good reminder that moderation is key, especially if you’re a barbecue enthusiast, experts said.
“The people who had the highest risk were grilling 15 times a month — that’s every other day,” said Dr. Haitham Ahmed, director of cardiac rehabilitation at the Cleveland Clinic.
• If you love grilling, fine, but maybe just limit that to two or three times a week, Ahmed said.
• You don’t have to char your food when you’re grilling it: Consider turning it more frequently. As long as the temperature comes up and the meat is adequately cooked, you can stop there. If it’s charred, consider cutting those parts off so you don’t consume any harmful chemicals.
• Limit your red meat consumption: Excess red meat intake causes or may contribute to high blood pressure, particularly because of all the sodium that comes with it, Ahmed said.
