Overview
- A preliminary prospective analysis of nearly 90,000 French adults found people with the highest intake of meat‑derived Neu5Gc had a 63% higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes than those with the lowest intake.
- The study estimated Neu5Gc intake from repeated 24‑hour dietary records and used a validated food Neu5Gc database across the NutriNet‑Santé cohort with 966 new diabetes cases identified over follow‑up.
- The link remained after adjusting for many confounders and weakened but stayed significant after accounting for body mass index, suggesting effects beyond obesity may be involved.
- When researchers adjusted for total red meat intake the Neu5Gc association fell to non‑significance, and no association was seen for dairy‑derived Neu5Gc, so Neu5Gc may explain only part of the red‑meat–diabetes relationship.
- Authors stress the findings are observational and unvalidated, note limits from dietary measurement error and possible residual confounding, and plan validation work including measuring anti‑Neu5Gc antibodies and testing interactions with other red‑meat components.