Men who eat large amounts of beef or pork daily face a heightened risk of diabetes, a team of researchers said Tuesday.
No risk rise was seen in women, the team from the National Center for Global Health and Medicine and the National Cancer Center said.
"It would be better for those who eat a lot of beef and pork to substitute a part with chicken and fish," said Kayo Kurotani, senior researcher at the National Center for Global Health and Medicine.
The team held a five-year study in the late 1990s on meat consumption among about 64,000 people between the ages of 45 and 75 at 11 areas nationwide. Some 1,200 of the subjects were diagnosed with diabetes during the period.
The team categorized the examinees into four groups based on their meat intake. Among men, the median value of the highest consuming group stood at 83 grams, and the risk of developing diabetes among those in the group was 42 percent higher than that of the lowest consuming group, whose median value came to 15 grams.