People eating ultraprocessed foods might be snacking their way to an earlier death. That’s according to the latest research on some of America’s favorite foods.
From white bread to soda, the hallmark features of ultraprocessed foods include added sugar, salt, hydrogenated fats, artificial colors, preservatives and starches. Ultraprocessed foods make up roughly 58% of American diets, the most out of any country. According to lead study investigator Eduardo Nilson, as far as diets go, it’s a potentially deadly one.
“We first estimated a linear association between the dietary share of UPFs (ultraprocessed foods) and all-cause mortality, so that each 10% increase in the participation of UPFs in the diet increases the risk of death from all causes by 3%,” he said in a news release.
Nilson and his team of researchers pooled data on ultraprocessed foods from eight countries, including the United States. Worldwide, the U.S. outranked every other featured country for having the highest concentration of ultraprocessed foods in its diets.
Americans consequently faced the highest increased risk of death — nearly 14%. The study estimated 124,000 premature deaths within the U.S. were attributable to ultraprocessed food consumption in 2018 alone.
Ultraprocessed food consumption has previously been linked to 32 health conditions, including cancers, obesity and high blood pressure. Nilson and his team’s work, however, has given researchers a better understanding of precisely how all of those different influences may be putting consumers at risk.
“UPFs affect health beyond the individual impact of high content of critical nutrients (sodium, trans fats and sugar) because of the changes in the foods during industrial processing and the use of artificial ingredients, including colorants, artificial flavors and sweeteners, emulsifiers and many other additives and processing aids, so assessing deaths from all-causes associated with UPF consumption allows an overall estimate of the effect of industrial food processing on health,” Nilson explained.
While the U.S. is facing the highest rate of attributable premature deaths, ultraprocessed foods are becoming an expanding issue in many other countries.
“It is concerning that, while in high-income countries UPF consumption is already high but relatively stable for over a decade, in low- and middle-income countries the consumption has continuously increased, meaning that while the attributable burden in high-income countries is currently higher, it is growing in the other countries,” Nilson said. “This shows that policies that disincentivize the consumption of UPFs are urgently needed globally, promoting traditional dietary patterns based on local fresh and minimally processed foods.”
For this study, Nilson’s team processed data on ultraprocessed food consumption in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States.
About the Author
Keep Reading
The Latest
Featured
