New studies look at the damaging effects of ultra-processed food

Areview of research involving almost 10 million people has found a direct association between eating too many ultra-processed foods — those breads, cereals, snacks and frozen meals that have been industrially manufactured with flavors and additives to make them more palatable — and more than 30 health conditions, including heart disease, anxiety and early death.

The facts

In recent years, dozens of studies have found that people who consume a lot of ultra-processed foods have higher rates of weight gain, obesity, cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and other chronic diseases.

Now, a team of international researchers has undertaken a comprehensive review of the evidence on adverse health outcomes to date — examining 45 “pooled meta-analyses” from 14 review articles involving nearly 10 million people.

All were published in the past three years, and none was funded by companies making ultra-processed food.

The researchers’ findings, published in the British medical journal BMJ, “show that diets high in ultra-processed food may be harmful to many body systems.”

They found “convincing evidence” that higher ultra-processed food intake was associated with about a 50 percent increased risk of cardiovascular disease-related death, a 48 to 53 percent higher risk of anxiety and common mental disorders, and a 12 percent greater risk of Type 2 diabetes.

Highly suggestive evidence also indicated that diets high in ultra-processed foods were associated with a 21 percent greater risk of death from any cause, a 40 percent to 66 percent higher risk of heart disease-related death, obesity, Type 2 diabetes and sleep problems, and a 22 percent increased risk of depression.

What are ultraprocessed foods?

Ultra-processed foods — such as frozen dinners, sugary cereals, potato chips and fast food — account for up to 58% of total daily energy intake in the United States, the researchers said.

Weak regulatory standards and industry power have even allowed ultra-processed foods like Lunchables to make their way onto school menus, The Washington Post has reported.

In an editorial published alongside the BMJ study, a group of international academics argued that ultra-processed foods “are not merely modified foods.” Typically, they contain “little if any whole food” and are made from cheap, chemically altered ingredients including modified starches, sugars, oils and fats, the group wrote.

“No reason exists to believe that humans can fully adapt to these products,” they added, calling for U.N. agencies and member states to develop a framework on ultra-processed foods akin to a treaty on tobacco control.

In the United States, dietary guidelines may soon warn against ultra-processed foods, as the federal government’s guidelines committee examines the science on the possible health risks, including obesity-related diseases.

Important context

The researchers say observational studies alone can’t prove that ultra-processed food is causing health problems, and more research needs to be done.

Clare Collins, a nutrition expert at the University of Newcastle in Australia, pointed out that intervention studies or clinical trials — where a potential drug or activity is tried out on people — won’t work in this case because it is not ethical to feed people ultra-processed foods every day “and wait for them to get sick and die.”

An alternative could be to swap out ultra-processed foods for healthy options to see if symptoms improved.

“The volume of evidence in this review would suggest that it would do no harm to swap out the Pop-Tart for a piece of whole-grain toast,” said Helen Truby, a research fellow at the University of Queensland.