Processed meats linked to heart disease posted 03:17 PM ET

BOSTON, May 18, 2010 (UPI via COMTEX) -- Processed meats -- bacon, hot dogs or processed deli meats -- are linked to more than a 40 percent higher risk of heart disease, U.S. researchers found.

Lead author Renata Micha, a research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health, said the researchers found no higher risk of heart disease or diabetes among people who ate unprocessed red meat -- beef, pork, or lamb.

Micha and colleagues Dariush Mozaffarian, assistant professor in the department of epidemiology and Sarah Wallace, a junior research fellow in the department of epidemiology, reviewed some 1,600 studies. Twenty studies involving more than 1.2 million people from 10 countries and four continents were found relevant for the review.

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