When experts recommend the best diets for healthy aging, heart health, or to help prevent cancer and chronic disease, they often emphasize fruits and vegetables, legumes, and lean proteins like chicken or fish. And while dietary recommendations are increasingly shifting more plant-based, chicken is still considered one of the healthier meat options—and Americans love it: On average, Americans consume over 100 pounds of chicken per year. But eating that much chicken may not be as healthy as once thought, according to a recent study published in the journal Nutrients.
In the study, researchers investigated the connection between poultry consumption, gastrointestinal cancers, and early death. Poultry refers to all forms of birds, including chicken, turkey, duck, and game birds like quail and pheasants. Examining data from 4,869 middle-aged Italian participants over 19 years, who answered surveys about their food and beverage consumption, researchers found that white meat consumption (rabbit and poultry) was highest among those who died of gastrointestinal cancers—colon, liver, pancreatic, stomach, esophageal, and rectal cancer, for example—with poultry intake accounting for 33% of their white meat intake.
