Red meat linked to health complications

Doctors with the Cleveland Clinic are researching a link between eating red meat and increased risk of heart attack and stroke.

High blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking, lack of exercise and obesity are all key risk factors for heart attack and stroke, but now, researchers at the Cleveland Clinic have found another risk factor that is just as important: Your gut microbiome.

For the first time, preventative cardiologist Stanley Hazen and his team found our gut microbiome, or the bacteria that live in our intestine, turns a nutrient found in red meat into something called TMAO.

“TMAO was a compound that showed up as being elevated and people who are at a future risk over the next three years, and as we worked backward to see where this compound came from, it was found that it came from digesting animal products,” Hazen said.

High levels of TMAO predict future risk of heart attack, stroke, chronic kidney disease and death. Now, Hazen’s team is working on new medications to reduce TMAO levels.

“We’ve shown that we can actually make the size of the stroke get smaller, and the adverse effects from the stroke get substantially reduced,” he said.

But until medications are approved, Doctor Hazen said he’s practicing new habits at home.

“I have to admit the amount of meat and animal products that we eat has gone way down in our household,” he said.

Doctor Hazen strongly believes that what we eat is just as important as the medicines we take.

He said that people who eat red meat are at a higher risk of having a heart attack or stroke, even if they don’t smoke, exercise regularly and aren’t overweight.