FIGURE 4.
Categories of animal-based food intake and all-cause mortality. Fully adjusted HRs and 95% CIs for the proportion of dietary energy from all animal-based foods and specific animal-based foods and all-cause mortality, from Cox proportional hazards regression (n = 77,437). All results are from continuous linear models. Results for all animal-based foods combined compared the 90th and 10th percentiles of intake. The 4 specific animal-based food categories (red meat, poultry, fish, and dairy/eggs) were modeled jointly; results compared the 87.5th percentile of intake among consumers of that particular category with 0 intake for that category. Levels of intake as percentages of total dietary energy are presented for these contrasts. In all cases, substitution is for an equivalent proportion of dietary energy from plant foods. All models adjusted for the proportion of dietary energy from ultra-processed foods (modeled continuously). Other adjustments were for age (i.e., attained age as time variable), sex (male, female), race (black, nonblack), geographic region (West, Northwest, Mountain, Midwest, East, South), education (up to high school graduate, trade school/some college/associate degree, bachelor degree, graduate degree), marital status (married/common-law, never married, widowed, divorced/separated), smoking (current smoker, quit <1 y, quit >1–5 y, quit >5–10 y, quit >10–20 y, quit >20–30 y, quit >30 y, never smoked), alcohol [nondrinker, rare drinker (<1.5 servings/mo), monthly drinker (1.5 to <4 servings/mo), weekly drinker (4 to <28 servings/mo), daily drinker (≥28 servings/mo)], exercise (i.e., “vigorous activities, such as brisk walking, jogging, bicycling, etc., long enough or with enough intensity to work up a sweat, get your heart thumping, or get out of breath”) (none, ≤20 min/wk, 21–60 min/wk, 61–150 min/wk, ≥151 min/wk), sleep duration (≤4 h/night, 5 to ≥9 h/night), menopause (in women) [premenopausal (including perimenopausal), postmenopausal], hormone replacement (in postmenopausal women) (not taking hormone replacement, taking hormone replacement), BMI (in kg/m2) [restricted cubic spline with knots at the 5th (19.7), 27.5th (23.4), 50th (26.1), 72.5th (29.4), and 95th (38.6) percentiles], total dietary energy (kcal/d), prevalent cardiovascular disease (coronary bypass, angioplasty/stent, carotid artery surgery, heart attack, or stroke; or angina pectoris or congestive heart failure treated in the last 12 mo) (yes, no), and diabetes mellitus active or treated in the last 12 mo (yes, no).