What was surprising was discovering the scant relationship between some eating habits and harm to health, confessed one of the study's authors, Christopher Murray, who heads IHME.
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For example, a company offering the link between smoking and lung cancer receives a five-star rating, meaning a fully demonstrable link and clear danger.
On the other hand, the relationship between eating beef and heart attack risk receives just one star, as “there is no evidence that such an association exists,” the study explained.
As for the link between red meat and colon cancer, breast cancer, or diabetes, these studies receive a two-star rating.
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“I'm very surprised by the weakness of many of the results linking diets to health risks,” he explained.
Murray warned at a news conference that “everyone pays attention to the latest published study” when results “often vary from black to white.”
To investigate the relationship between a plant-rich diet and health, researchers compared 50 studies based on questionaries of 4,6 million participants in 34 countries.
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If the number of vegetables consumed per day increases from zero to four, this represents a 23% reduction in the risk of ischemic stroke.
The relationship between eating vegetables and diabetes (category 2) received just one star.
Some scientists, such as Kevin McConway of the UK's Open University, warn, however, that such star classifications “risk being too vast”.
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Another expert, Duane Mellor of the UK's Aston University, believes the study results are "not unexpected" because the health problems are caused by highly processed meat products such as sausages rather than raw meat.
IHME plans to keep its ranking updated with further studies and will soon publish other rankings relating health to factors such as alcohol intake or air pollution.
(To AFP)
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