Excessive use of meat may cause serious health hazards

People should avoid bad dietary habits on and after Eid

Rawalpindi

Eating excessive amounts of meat may cause a number of serious health hazards including heart disease, kidney disease, osteoporosis (softening of bones) and cancer though majority of our population is either unaware of the fact or takes the matter lightly and eats too much meat on and after Eidul Azha.

Studies show that people who eat too much meat are 20 per cent more likely to develop cancer if they eat a lot of red meat. Pancreatic cancer, colon cancer and breast cancer have been linked to heavy meat consumption. Meat also contains lots of saturated fat and cholesterol, which can lead to heart disease. Meat may also contain high levels of hormones, which can trigger reproductive problems and early-onset puberty in children.

Health experts believe that one should not consume more than 250 grams of red meat in a day and the fat attached with red meat should not be used as a replacement of oil or ghee as this is more dangerous form of fat and can lead to hypertension and heart disease. Spicy stuff like brain masala, head and trotters should be avoided by those having high cholesterol.

Your kidneys work to remove excess proteins from your body, so eating too much protein can stress them out, leading to kidney damage and even contributing to renal failure in some cases. High dietary protein levels cause your body to excrete more calcium, which can contribute to osteoporosis. Excessive use of red meat, salt and chilies can increase stomach acidity also.

Head of Community Medicine at CMH Lahore Medical College Professor Dr Muhammad Ashraf Chaudhry expressed this while talking to ‘The News’ about health threats, the use of excessive amounts of meat on and weeks after Eid may pose.

He said that meat should not be stored in refrigerators for more than 10 days instead one should try to eat only fresh meat. Excessive meat may increase uric acid level, leading to increased incidence of gouty arthritis, he said.

Referring to a newer study, he said eating red meat on a regular basis may shorten your lifespan and substituting one serving per day of other foods – like fish, poultry, nuts, legumes, low-fat dairy and whole grains for red meat could lower the risk of mortality by 19%.

Red meat preferably should be used with vegetables and yogurt. Eating too much red meat could increase the risk of Alzheimer’s disease also. So the message is to try to reduce the red meat consumption to less than two to three servings per week, said Dr. Ashraf.

He added that it has been observed that most of the people have habit of smoking after meals, eating fruit immediately after meal, drinking tea, taking walk and sleeping immediately, which are bad practices. Experiments prove that smoking a cigarette after meal is comparable to smoking 10 cigarettes (chance of cancer is higher). Eating fruits immediately after meal will cause stomach to be bloated with air. Tea contains a high content of acid. This substance will cause the protein content in the food we consume to be hardened thus difficult to digest, he explained.

He added that people say that after a meal walk a hundred step and you will live till 99. In actual fact, this is not true. Walking will cause the digestive system to be unable to absorb the nutrition from the food we take. Similarly, if we sleep immediately after a meal, the food will not be able to digest properly and this will lead to gastric problem and infection in our intestine. Meal should be taken at least two hours before sleep, he said.