Is Red Meat Killing You? [POLL]

In an age of diets, nutritional supplements and a focus on physical fitness, it's not a surprise to read that red meat might not be good for your overall health, but can it significantly shorten your lifespan?

A recent study released by the Archives of Internal Medicine found that death at an early age was directly tied to a person's red meat consumption. Cause of death varied throughout the study and included heart disease and cancer, but the common factor was the steady consumption of red meats.

And while these results in and of themselves may not surprise many people, according to a report by CNN, the new study is the first to "estimate the effect of swapping out red meat on a person's lifespan."

Compiling data from two long-running studies (The Health Professionals Follow-up Study and the Nurses' Health Study), researchers followed the diets of more than 121,000 middle-aged men and women for up to 28 years, and roughly 20 percent of the participants died during that period, said the study.

Each serving of red meat that participants ate per day was associated with a 13 percent higher chance of dying during the study, and eating processed red meats such as hot dogs and bologna produced a 20 percent higher chance of death.

The study also revealed that substituting red meat once a day with foods such as fish, poultry, nuts, legumes, low-fat dairy and whole grains substantially lowered the risk of mortality, from 7 percent to 19 percent. 

"We also estimated that 9.3 percent of deaths in men and 7.6 percent in women in these cohorts could be prevented at the end of follow-up if all the individuals consumed fewer than 0.5 servings per day (approximately 42 g/d) of red meat," said the study. 

This is not the only discouraging news pertaining to red meat that has come out in recent days. . 

What do you think? Is it time to put down the hamburger and the steak knife, or is this just another study that will eventually just fall by the wayside in the collective mindset? 

Are you eating red meat and doing just fine, or do you agree with these experts? Tell us in the comments and vote in today's poll.