People who eat a large amount of heavily processed foods have a greater risk of poor health and early death according to major studies.
Researchers in France and Spain sya the amount of processed food being eaten has increased massively.
Ultra-processed foods is the way of classifying food by how much industrial processing it has been through. These types of foods have added preservatives, sweeteners or colour enhancers.
Examples of ultra-processed foods are:
- processed meat such as sausages and hamburgers
- breakfast cereals or cereal bars
- many ready meals
- mass-produced bread
- ice cream
- breakfast cereals or cereal bars
- instant soups
- sugary fizzy drinks
- chicken nuggets
- cake
- chocolate
The findings of the study showed people who ate a large amount of ultra-processed foods got medical disorders such as cancer, obesity and high blood pressure.
The first study was in Spain, they followed 19,899 people for a decade and assessed their diets every other year. There were 335 deaths during the study. For every 10 deaths among those eating the least ultra-processed, there were 16 deaths among those eating the most (more than four portions a day).
The second study was in France and followed 105,159 people for five years and assessed their diet twice a year. It revealed that those who ate more ultra-processed food has the worst health. The rates of cardiovascular disease were 277 per 100,000 people per year between those eating the most ultra-processed food, compared with 242 per 100,000 among those eating the least.
Prof Corinna Hawkes, director of food policy at City University London and one of the lead researchers in the government-funded obesity policy research unit, said: “Governments must do more to comprehensively reduce the availability, affordability, and appeal of processed foods high in fats, sugars and salt.”
“It is critical to pursue further research on the connection between food and health,” she added. “There is a lot we do know but also a lot we have yet to learn. We need more and more studies to build up a bigger picture.”
In an accompanying editorial, Mark Lawrence and Phillip Baker, who work on food and nutrition policy at Deakin University in Australia, write: “The dietary advice is relatively straightforward: eat less ultra-processed food and more unprocessed or minimally processed food.”
Victoria Taylor, senior dietician at the British Heart Foundation, said: “We already recommend people adopt a Mediterranean-style diet, which also happens to include plenty of minimally or unprocessed foods, such as fruit, vegetables, fish, nuts and seeds, beans, lentils and wholegrains.
“This, along with exercising regularly and not smoking, has been shown to be beneficial for lowering risk of heart and circulatory disease.”
