Health
Red meat could raise dementia risk, researchers claim, yet some doctors have questions
While red meat is a rich source of protein, iron and other nutrients, a recent study linked it to an increased risk of dementia — but some doctors are casting doubt on the claim.
Researchers from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Mass General Brigham found that daily consumption of certain amounts of processed red meats increased dementia risk by 13%, according to a press release.
It was also tied to a 14% higher risk of developing subjective cognitive decline and faster brain aging.
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“The findings did not really surprise us,” lead study author Yuhan Li, a researcher from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, told Fox News Digital.
Researchers from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Mass General Brigham found that daily consumption of certain amounts of processed red meats increased dementia risk, but some doctors are casting doubt. (iStock)
“The results are generally in line with our hypothesis, showing that a higher intake of red meat, particularly processed red meat, is associated with an increased risk of developing dementia and worse cognition.”
The increased risk was seen in people who ate at least one-quarter of a serving of unprocessed meats per day, according to the research article. This equates to around one hot dog, two slices of bacon, or one and a half slices of bologna.
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The researchers also suggested that replacing one serving of processed red meat per day with a serving of nuts and legumes could reduce dementia risk by 19% — and that replacing it with fish could reduce the risk by 28%.
The study included 133,771 individuals, 11,173 of whom received a dementia diagnosis over a four-decade span. The data came from the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) and Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (HPFS), which tracked participants’ dietary choices and health status.
The increased risk was seen in people who ate at least one-quarter of a serving of unprocessed meats per day, which equates to around two slices of bacon, one hot dog, or one and a half slices of bologna. (iStock)
Funded by the National Institutes of Health, the study was published on Jan. 15 in the journal Neurology.
The findings were first presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC) earlier in 2024.
Experts react to the findings
“There are many reasons to believe that too much red meat is linked to dementia,” Dr. Marc Siegel, clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Health and Fox News senior medical analyst, told Fox News Digital.
“In the case of processed meat like bacon and ham, the chemicals added may also lead to dementia via inflammation and neuroinflammation,” added Siegel, who was not involved in the new research.
The researchers suggested that replacing one serving of processed red meat per day with a serving of nuts and legumes could reduce dementia risk by 19%. (iStock)
The doctor also warned of red meat potentially leading to weight gain and obesity, which can cause inflammation and in turn raise the risk of dementia.
“Red meat may also lead to heart disease, which increases dementia risk,” Siegel noted.
Theresa Gentile, a registered dietitian nutritionist and spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics in New York, noted that previous research has found an association between red meat — especially processed red meat — and an increased risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, which are both related to impaired cognitive health.
“There isn’t a single food or ingredient that … has been shown to cause, increase risk, prevent, treat or cure Alzheimer’s or other dementias.”
“This was a large study conducted over a long period of time and was adjusted for confounding factors and still found that, in three different groups, eating more processed red meat was associated with cognitive decline than eating less,” Gentile, who did not work on the study, told Fox News Digital.
Some experts suggested that the risk is linked more to ultraprocessed foods in general rather than specific meats.
“The results are generally in line with our hypothesis, showing that a higher intake of red meat, particularly processed red meat, is associated with an increased risk of developing dementia and worse cognition,” said one of the researchers (not pictured). (iStock)
Heather M. Snyder, Ph.D., senior vice president of medical and scientific relations at the Alzheimer’s Association in Chicago, pointed out that a number of studies have suggested that diets with more ultraprocessed foods are bad for brain health.
“For example, a report at the AAIC 2022 found that people who eat large amounts of ultraprocessed foods have a faster decline in cognition,” Snyder, who was not involved in the new study, told Fox News Digital.
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“More than 20% of daily intake of ultraprocessed foods led to a 28% faster decline in global cognitive scores, including memory and verbal fluency.”
It is “unlikely” that one food will have a “significant beneficial or detrimental effect on a disease as complex as Alzheimer’s,” according to Snyder.
“There isn’t a single food or ingredient that, through rigorous scientific research, has been shown to cause, increase risk, prevent, treat or cure Alzheimer’s or other dementias,” she stated.
Potential study limitations
Siegel noted that the study was observational, which means that “no strict conclusions can be drawn.”
“We still need double-blinded, randomized trials to draw more definite conclusions,” he said.
It is “unlikely” that one food will have a “significant beneficial or detrimental effect on a disease as complex as Alzheimer’s,” one expert stated. (iStock)
Lead study author Yuhan also acknowledged the potential limitations.
“The Nurses’ Health Study enrolled female registered nurses, and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study enrolled U.S. male health professionals,” she told Fox News Digital.
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“These participants tend to have higher educational attainment and income levels, and therefore, the study’s generalizability may be limited. In addition, because this study is an observational study, residual confounding remains a possibility.”
Dr. Ken Berry, a family physician and diabetes specialist in Tennessee, was not involved in the study but shared his thoughts on “healthy user bias” potentially skewing the results.
“The people who are eating the least amount of processed meat and the least amount of red meat in these studies — they were also exercising every day,” one doctor noted when speaking about the research. (iStock)
“The people who are eating the least amount of processed meat and the least amount of red meat in these studies — they were also exercising every day,” he said in a video posted on his YouTube channel last week.
“They absolutely did not smoke. They did not drink to excess. They were trying their best to live a healthy life.”
“We still need double-blinded, randomized trials to draw more definite conclusions.”
Research has shown that exercising regularly and eating whole, unprocessed foods can decrease the risk of dementia, Berry noted.
“I don’t think any nutrition expert would argue with that,” he said, but added that there is “no evidence whatsoever” that red meat is linked to higher dementia risk.
Healthy dietary tips
Gentile recommended limiting servings of processed red meats like bacon, sausage, hot dogs and deli meats to less than a quarter of a serving per day, and to consider healthier protein alternatives like fish, nuts, legumes and chicken.
“A balanced diet with moderation in terms of protein sources and serving size is key,” Gentile said. “If your diet is heavy in processed red meats, try swapping one of those servings out for beans, fish or chicken.”
One registered dietitian recommended limiting servings of processed red meats and considering protein alternatives like fish, nuts, legumes and chicken. (iStock)
The nutritionist also suggested including brain-boosting foods each day, like fruits, vegetables, whole grains and healthy fats.
The Alzheimer’s Association has long encouraged eating a balanced diet to help prevent Alzheimer’s disease and all other dementia types, Snyder noted.
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“That includes foods that are less processed to ensure that our bodies get the needed nutrients, because they’ve been associated with a lower risk of cognitive decline,” she told Fox News Digital.
“As research continues, we may uncover other dietary patterns that increase or decrease our risk.”
Berry pointed out that while he is a self-described “carnivore,” he is not completely “anti-plant.”
“I’m a proponent of a proper human diet, which ranges from low-carb with vegetables and berries and nuts, to keto with a few berries and vegetables and nuts, to ‘ketovore’ with just a little veg for flavor and garnish, all the way to carnivore,” he said in his video.
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The best diet for any individual should depend on multiple factors, he said, including their overall metabolic health, age, weight, genetics and gut microbiome.
Added Berry, “That’s the proper human diet spectrum.”
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The time of day patients receive cancer treatments could have an impact on the outcome, a new study suggests.
New research published in Cancer, the official journal of the American Cancer Society, found that patients who received standard immunochemotherapy for extensive-stage small cell lung cancer (ES-SCLC) earlier in the day saw “significantly greater benefit” compared to those who got the same treatment later in the afternoon.
In the study, researchers from the Affiliated Cancer Hospital of Xiangya School of Medicine at Central South University, China, analyzed data from nearly 400 patients who were treated between May 2019 and October 2023.
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All patients had ES-SCLC and received first-line immunotherapy (atezolizumab or durvalumab) along with chemotherapy, according to a press release.
“Our study found that patients who received immunochemotherapy before 3:00 PM had substantially longer progression-free survival and overall survival,” lead study author Dr. Yongchang Zhang, medical oncologist and chief director at the Hunan Cancer Hospital in Changsha, China, told Fox News Digital.
The time of day patients receive cancer treatments could have an impact on the outcome, a new study suggests. (iStock)
“After adjusting for multiple confounding factors, earlier administration was associated with a 52% lower risk of cancer progression and a 63% lower risk of death.”
“It was quite surprising that simply changing the infusion time could lead to such substantial survival benefits for patients,” he added.
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The findings align with the idea of chronotherapy, which suggests that the body’s natural daily rhythms affect how the immune system works and how drugs act in the body.
This means cancer treatments may be more effective at certain times of day, likely because immune activity and drug processing change over the 24-hour cycle, the study suggests.
“This study should not prompt patients to delay treatment or panic about appointment times.”
Based on the findings, Zhang recommends scheduling immunotherapy infusions in the early part of the day.
“Research across multiple cancer types has shown that patients receiving immunotherapy earlier in the day experience longer survival,” he noted. “Our findings in non-small cell lung cancer, supported by both multicenter retrospective studies and prospective clinical trials, confirm this pattern.”
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Gilberto Lopes, M.D., chief of medical oncology at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, noted that previous, similar studies in non-small cell lung cancer have shown better outcomes when immunotherapy is administered earlier in the day, reinforcing the idea that the immune system follows circadian rhythms that influence treatment response.
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“In that sense, the results are biologically plausible and consistent with a growing body of evidence across cancers,” Lopes, who was not involved in the study, told Fox News Digital. “What is striking is that this signal now appears in small cell lung cancer, a disease where outcomes have been notoriously difficult to improve.”
All patients had ES-SCLC and received first-line immunotherapy (atezolizumab or durvalumab) along with chemotherapy. (iStock)
The study did have some limitations, as detailed in the published study. Most notably, the study was retrospective and observational, meaning it could not prove a cause-and-effect relationship between timing of treatments and outcomes.
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With this type of study, Lopes said, “investigators start with an idea and go back and review patient records.” In this case, other factors can have an impact on the outcome, according to the oncologist.
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“For instance, did patients who come early in the day have a better quality of life, performance status and socioeconomic status and that is what made the difference?” he asked. “Or something else we don’t know? These results need to be confirmed prospectively to eliminate known and unknown sources of bias.”
“The next step is prospective testing, but until then, this research invites us to rethink something medicine usually ignores: timing itself,” an oncologist said. (iStock)
Zhang also pointed out that this was a single-center study including only Chinese patients. “To obtain more definitive evidence, prospective clinical trials conducted across multiple countries and diverse populations are needed,” he told Fox News Digital.
Looking ahead, the researchers plan to conduct randomized trials to confirm these preliminary findings and pinpoint optimal treatment windows based on individual patients’ chronotypes (internal body clocks).
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“This study should not prompt patients to delay treatment or panic about appointment times,” Lopes cautioned. “But it raises an important, low-cost question for oncology systems: If scheduling flexibility exists, should earlier infusion times be preferred?”
“The next step is prospective testing, but until then, this research invites us to rethink something medicine usually ignores: timing itself.”
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A widely prescribed opioid painkiller showed limited effectiveness and increased risk of negative effects in a new analysis published in BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine.
The study examined tramadol, a common prescription opioid used to treat chronic pain.
Tramadol has historically been perceived as a safer or less addictive opioid, which has contributed to its widespread use in chronic pain treatment, the study authors noted.
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“Often, we may use tramadol to avoid more addictive drugs like other opioids, though in fact tramadol is a synthetic opioid. It is much milder,” Dr. Marc Siegel, senior medical analyst for Fox News, told Fox News Digital.
In the new analysis, researchers used data from 19 randomized clinical trials involving 6,506 adults with conditions including osteoarthritis, chronic low back pain, neuropathic pain and fibromyalgia. All the studies compared tramadol to a placebo treatment.
The level of pain relief associated with tramadol fell below the threshold typically considered clinically important. (iStock)
Overall, tramadol led to a small decrease in pain, but the amount of relief was less than what is usually considered clinically meaningful, the authors reported.
“It is notable how minimal the pain reduction was and how clearly the study highlighted the elevated risk of serious adverse events, even over relatively short trial durations,” Alopi M. Patel, M.D., pain medicine physician at Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai in New York City, told Fox News Digital. (Patel was not involved in the study.)
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Participants receiving tramadol experienced a higher risk of adverse events, both serious and non-serious, compared with those receiving a placebo.
Serious adverse events primarily included cardiovascular events, such as chest pain, coronary artery disease and congestive heart failure. The authors concluded that tramadol likely increases the risk of heart-related issues.
Serious adverse events were primarily driven by cardiovascular outcomes, including chest pain, coronary artery disease and congestive heart failure. (iStock)
The authors concluded that the benefits of tramadol for chronic pain are small and that the harms likely outweigh the benefits. The findings call into question the use of tramadol for chronic pain conditions, they stated.
Study limitations
Most of the trials included in the analysis were short, with treatment periods ranging from two to 16 weeks and follow-up periods from three to 15 weeks.
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This limited the ability to assess long-term outcomes, the researchers acknowledged.
The authors reported that many outcomes had a high risk of bias, which may have exaggerated the apparent benefits and minimized the reported harms.
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The trials involved several different types of chronic pain, but the data were not detailed enough to draw conclusions for any specific condition. This makes it “harder to generalize the findings to specific patient populations,” noted Patel.
Most trials were short in duration and compared tramadol only with a placebo — limiting conclusions about long-term effects and comparisons with other treatments. (iStock)
Though the study has value, Siegel said, “looking at slight increased rates of cancer or heart disease among those on the drug is completely misleading, because it is not controlled for other factors and there is no evidence or hint of causation.”
“You would have to first look at underlying characteristics of that group who took the meds.”
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The doctor also pointed out that the study “doesn’t compare [tramadol] with full-on opioids like Percocet.”
Experts emphasize that patients should not stop taking tramadol abruptly, as doing so can lead to withdrawal symptoms. Those looking to change their medication should consult a doctor.
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“I recommend that clinicians and patients engage in transparent, shared decision-making that considers tramadol’s modest benefits alongside its risks,” Patel advised.
Fox News Digital reached out to several manufacturers of tramadol requesting comment.
New flu strain emerging as a severe health threat
Fox News senior medical analyst Dr. Marc Siegel joins ‘America’s Newsroom’ to warn of a new strain of the flu that is spiking hospitalizations across the country and newfound risks of medical marijuana’s link to psychosis.
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A new form of the flu, which is highly contagious and aggressive, is sweeping the nation this season.
A mutation of influenza A H3N2, called subclade K, has been detected as the culprit in rising global cases, including in the U.S.
The World Health Organization stated on its website that the K variant marks “a notable evolution in influenza A (H3N2) viruses,” which some say calls into question the effectiveness of this season’s influenza vaccine against the strain.
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The K variant causes more intense flu symptoms, including fever, chills, headache, fatigue, cough, sore throat and runny nose, according to experts.
Multiple states in the northeast are reporting high rates of respiratory illness this month. (iStock)
Among 216 influenza A(H3N2) viruses collected since Sept. 28, 89.8% belonged to subclade K, a CDC report states.
The agency continues to release a weekly influenza surveillance report, tracking which states are seeing the most activity for outpatient respiratory illness.
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Below are the states and regions within the highest range of reported medical visits, not necessarily confirmed influenza cases, as of the week ending Dec. 13.
The CDC’s weekly influenza surveillance report, an outpatient respiratory illness activity map, based on data reported to ILINet for the week ending Dec. 13, 2025. (CDC FluView)
Very High (Level 1)
Very High (Level 2)
Very High (Level 3)
- New Jersey
- Rhode Island
- Louisiana
- Colorado
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High (Level 1)
- Massachusetts
- Connecticut
- Michigan
- Idaho
- South Carolina
High (Level 2)
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High (Level 3)
- Washington, D.C.
- Maryland
- North Carolina
- Georgia
The CDC has estimated that there have been at least 4.6 million illnesses, 49,000 hospitalizations and 1,900 flu deaths this season so far. The flu vaccine is recommended as the best line of defense against the virus.
The flu vaccine is recommended as the best line of defense against the virus. (iStock)
In an interview with Fox News Digital, Dr. Neil Maniar, professor of public health practice at Boston’s Northeastern University, shared details on the early severity of this emerging flu strain.
“It’s becoming evident that this is a pretty severe variant of the flu,” he said. “Certainly, in other parts of the world where this variant has been prevalent, it’s caused some severe illness, and we’re seeing an aggressive flu season already.”
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Subclade K is the “perfect storm” for an aggressive flu season, Maniar suggested, as vaccination rates overall are down, and it’s uncertain whether this year’s flu vaccine directly addresses this specific mutation.
“The vaccine is very important to get, but because it’s not perfectly aligned with this variant, I think that’s also contributing to some degree to the severity of cases we’re seeing,” he said. “We’re going in [to this flu season] with lower vaccination rates and a variant that in itself seems to be more aggressive.”
Subclade K has “caused some severe illness, and we’re seeing an aggressive flu season already,” a doctor said. (iStock)
Maniar stressed that it’s not too late to get the flu vaccine, as peak flu season has not yet arrived.
“The vaccine still provides protection against serious illness resulting from the subclade K variant that seems to be going around,” he said. “There are likely to be lots of indoor gatherings and other events that create risk of exposure, so protection is important.”
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Even healthy individuals can become seriously ill from the flu, Maniar noted, “so a vaccine is beneficial for almost everyone.”
“Individuals typically start to develop some degree of protection within a few days and gain the full benefit within about two weeks, so now is the time for anyone who hasn’t gotten the vaccine yet.”
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