That is the conclusion of a study published in Nature Communications, and accessed on Science Alert
Put simply, having too much iron in the blood appeared to be linked to an increased risk of dying earlier.
“We are very excited by these findings as they strongly suggest that high levels of iron in the blood reduces our healthy years of life, and keeping these levels in check could prevent age-related damage,” said data analyst Paul Timmers, from the University of Edinburgh in the UK.
“We speculate that our findings on iron metabolism might also start to explain why very high levels of iron-rich red meat in the diet has been linked to age-related conditions such as heart disease.”
While correlation doesn’t necessarily mean causation, the researchers used a statistical technique called Mendelian randomisation to reduce bias and attempt to infer causation in the data.
As the researchers noted, genetics are thought to have around a 10 percent influence on lifespan and healthspan, and that can make it difficult to pick out the genes involved from all the other factors involved (like your smoking or drinking habits). With that in mind, one of the advantages of this new study is its sheer size and scope.
Ellen White warned us of the dangers of meat eating.
Of course we Seventh-day Adventists have been told by God’s messenger, Ellen White, starting over 160 years ago, that meat eating was not best for the body. Then, in later years, she wrote that God’s people will eventually give up eating meat before Jesus returns.
I had only considered this from the angle of the diseases in the animals led to the slaughterhouse, but now I see that even the iron, which I’ve been taught is a good thing to get as much as you can, may be a large factor in making us die earlier.
If we really want to follow God’s will and keep this temple pure for Him, we should quit eating meat today.