The American Meat Institute (AMI), National Cattlemen's BeefAssociation (NCBA), National Pork Board and US Department of Agriculture (USDA) have all been quick to call into question the results of the study.

Conducted by the US National Cancer Institute, it claims that there is a link between red meat consumption and death.

AMI executive vice president James Hodges says the findings were based on unreliable self-reporting by the study participants and NCBA Human Nutrition director Shalene McNeill says other factors complicated the study.

"Those with increased risk were also two to three times more likely to smoke, they had under-consumption of fruits and vegetables and they were more likely to be overweight," McNeill said.

"So there were a lot of unhealthy behaviours that complicate the findings in this study.

National Pork Board dietician Ceci Snyder says the study shows a little bit of ignorance in claiming that pork has excessive iron content.

"The iron in chicken and pork is almost identical," Snyder said. "Someone hasn't really looked into the composition data to show that, so that's an argument that shows that they really don't know the facts about meat."

A study conducted by the US National Cancer Institute claims that there is a link between red meat consumption and death.

The 10 year study of more than half-a-million middle-aged and elderly Americans found a 30pc higher death rate from daily consumption of beef, pork and processed meats.

Cancer-causing compounds, too much iron, especially in pork, and saturated fat are all blamed for the linkage.

In contrast, the study concluded that consumption of fish, chicken, turkey and other poultry decreased the risk of death by a small amount.