Hello, brain health ambassadors. I hope today’s newsletter finds you in the midst of an abundance of summer produce. Where I live at high altitude, the tomatoes are just starting to come in, so I’ll be eating tomatoes every way you can think of for as long as they last.
Peak summer produce makes it easier to follow a brain-healthy way of eating, which is a plant-forward take on the Mediterranean and MIND diets. But today we are talking about meat, thanks to a new study that generated some pretty sensational headlines.
Could eating more meat help carriers of the Alzheimer’s risk gene ApoE4 fend off the disease? That is the provocative question posed by researchers in a recently published paper in JAMA Open Network. It’s an important question that could impact millions of people; 25% of Americans carry one or two copies of this gene. There are many science-backed recommendations for lessening the impact of carrying an ApoE4, but eating more steak has never been one of them.
This study is about more than how much meat to eat in a brain-healthy diet (although I’ll give you my recommendations, below). It poses a more important, overriding question: Does optimal nutrition differ for ApoE4 carriers compared to those who don’t carry this Alzheimer’s risk gene?
We’ll get into the details below.
It’s been fun to welcome new students into the course and I’m looking forward to our live Q and A on August 3. There are still a few spots left, and you can jump in anytime. Learn month to month, or purchase the whole course. Just for BHK subscribers, get $50 off the whole course by using this link.
In case you missed it, last month we announced a scholarship program for those wanting to enter to take the course free of charge. We intended to choose one winner via a lottery. Well, we were overwhelmed with the number of applicants, and with all the compelling stories of how you would use the information. So, we are thrilled to announce we’ve chosen 9 scholarship recipients! We’ll be reaching out to you all today, so please look for an email from me and Anja, the course director.
Join me in April 2027 on the Greek island of Crete! We’ll be hiking the rolling hills, e-biking along the coast, and exploring Greece’s farm-to-table culture in the heart of the Mediterranean. Sign up as a Founding Member and learn more here.
Season 1 of the BHK Podcast wrapped up with an in-depth and practical conversation about the role of omega-3s and brain health with Dr. Ed. Park. Jenny and I are working on bringing you a series of “Summer Highlights”—our favorite segments from some of the brilliant guests we interviewed this year. So many of you have folded the podcast into your daily routine, and we hope you’ll enjoy catching up or revisiting some of the top moments. Take us with you on your next quick walk; each episode lasts between 15 and 30 minutes. Summer Highlights come out on Tuesdays now through September.
Before we unpack the recent study, let’s recap what we’ve already learned about how eating meat impacts long-term brain health.
All the proven brain-protective dietary patterns (Mediterranean, MIND, Green MED, and others) show eating less meat is overall beneficial for reducing dementia risk. The most compelling study to date—the MIND diet—advises keeping red meat intake to no more than three small (three ounce) servings a week.
Most studies looking at meat intake hadn’t clarified an important distinction—whether that meat is processed or unprocessed.
The World Health Organization defines meat as processed if it has been transformed through salting, curing, fermentation, smoking, or other industrial processes to enhance flavor or preserve shelf life. This includes bacon, cured ham, smoked meats, hot dogs, sausages, salami, lunch meats, deli meats, and beef jerky. I go into the distinction between processed and unprocessed meat in this post.
Then, in 2021, the largest study ever done on meat intake and brain outcomes was published. The UK Biobank study looked at brain imaging data of nearly 500,000 people to tease out which dietary factors affect brain shrinkage and dementia risk. This was followed by the 2025 Nurses’ Health Study of 133,771 participants over 43 years. Researchers wanted to understand the impact of meat consumption on dementia risk over decades.
Both of these studies have the power to give us solid data on this topic. Both have shaped my current recommendations for eating meat in a brain-healthy diet. In a nutshell, here’s what these studies determined about eating processed meat:
The UK Biobank study found that for every one-ounce serving of processed meat per day, the risk of dementia increased by 44 percent, and the risk of Alzheimer’s specifically increased by 52 percent. To put that in context, one ounce is less than two slices of bacon, or one piece of breakfast sausage.
The Nurses’ Health Study found that dementia rates went up by 13% starting at one ounce of processed meat per day. They also noted that eating one ounce of processed meat was associated with a 14% higher risk of subjective cognitive decline (perhaps the earliest sign that one is developing cognitive impairment).
The Nurses’ Health Study also showed what happens when processed meat gets swapped out for brain-healthy foods like nuts and legumes: subjective cognitive decline risk drops by 21%, dementia risk drops by 19%, and brain aging slows by 1.37 years.
Unprocessed meat includes beef, steak, lamb, pork chops, and other red meats that have been mechanically processed, meaning cut or ground, but not chemically processed through curing, smoking, or salting.
The UK Biobank study found that every two ounces of unprocessed red meat per day was associated with a 19 percent decreased risk of dementia.
The 2025 Nurses’ Health Study, however, did not show a benefit from eating unprocessed meat. In fact, unprocessed red meat intake of ≥1.00 serving per day (about 3 ounces), compared with <0.50 serving per day, was associated with a 16% higher risk of subjective cognitive decline.
Limit or avoid processed meat entirely. Including a small amount of unprocessed meat in the diet may reduce overall dementia risk, although this was not shown in the highly credible Nurses’ Health Study. I went into the reasons why unprocessed meat may be good for brain health here, along with my guidelines for including it in your brain-healthy diet.
Now let’s look at the study published in JAMA Open Network a few months ago. Researchers followed more than 2,000 adults over age 60 (average age of 71.2 years) for 15 years. They wanted to see if meat consumption affected cognitive outcomes differently for people who carry the ApoE4 gene variant compared to non-carriers. Researchers compared those participants who ate the greatest amount of meat (as a percentage of total calories) compared to those who ate the smallest amounts. They evaluated brain health by noting dementia and mortality rates, but also global cognition and memory over time.
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.