When convicted killer Lawrence Brewer was put to death in Texas last September, he requested a final meal so voluminous it prompted the state’s prison authorities to abolish the practice of letting inmates choose their last supper. His lavish spread included, among other things, a juicy hamburger.

Had he been around to read the newspapers a few months later, however, he might well have been convinced that the burger would have killed him before the lethal injection.

This follows an exhaustive 28-year study of more than 120,000 people by the Harvard School Of Public Health, whose findings suggest that anyone eating a burger-sized daily serving of red meat has an 18 per cent increased chance of dying from heart disease, and is 10 per cent more likely to die from cancer.

“Our study adds more evidence to the health risks of eating large amounts of red meat, which has been associated with heart disease, strokes and certain cancers,” said An Pan, lead author of the Harvard report. Ever quick to help, scientists dissecting the results have worked out that a daily burger equates to shaving half an hour off every day of the rest of your life. Or, if you prefer, it will have the same effects as smoking 14 cigarettes a week.

Health writer Elizabeth Lee explains why: “Some red meats are high in saturated fat, which raises cholesterol,” she says, pointing out that high levels have been proved to increase the risk of heart disease. Cancer is more of a mystery, though many researchers agree that lashings of red meat does increase the danger.

The intimation that the meat between those two buns will all-too-quickly lead to the pearly gates should be enough to make even the most dedicated burger-lover start avoiding the butchers — but will it? Possibly not. Burgers are hard to resist.