Eating higher levels of ultraprocessed food may shorten lifespans by more than 10%, according to a new, unpublished study of over 500,000 people whom researchers followed for nearly three decades.
The risk went up to 15% for men and 14% for women once the data was adjusted, said study lead author Erikka Loftfield, an investigator at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.
Asked about their consumption of 124 foods, people in the top 90th percentile of ultraprocessed food consumption said overly processed drinks topped their list.
“Diet soft drinks were the key contributor to ultraprocessed food consumption. The second one was sugary soft drinks,” Loftfield said. “Beverages are a very important component of the diet and the contribution to ultraprocessed food.”
Refined grains such as ultraprocessed breads and baked goods ranked next in popularity, the study found.
“This is one more large, long-duration cohort study confirming the association between UPF (ultraprocessed food) intake and all-cause mortality, particularly from cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes,” said Carlos Monteiro, emeritus professor of nutrition and public health at Brazil’s University of São Paulo, in an email.
Monteiro coined the term ultraprocessed food and created the NOVA food classification system, which looks beyond nutrients to how foods are made. Monteiro was not involved in the study, but several members of the NOVA classification system were coauthors.
The NOVA classification system sorts foods from minimally processed — whole foods such as fruits and vegetables — to processed foods such as deli meat and sausage — to ultraprocessed. Ultraprocessed foods contain ingredients “never or rarely used in kitchens, or classes of additives whose function is to make the final product palatable or more appealing,” according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
The list of additives includes preservatives to resist mold and bacteria; emulsifiers to keep incompatible ingredients from separating; artificial colorings and dyes; anti-foaming, bulking, bleaching, gelling and glazing agents; and added or altered sugar, salt and fats designed to make food appetizing.
Monteiro coined the term ultraprocessed food and created the NOVA food classification system, which looks beyond nutrients to how foods are made. Monteiro was not involved in the study, but several members of the NOVA classification system were coauthors.／Flickr
Health risks linked to processed meats and soft drinks
The preliminary study, presented Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition in Chicago, analyzed dietary data gathered in 1995 from nearly 541,000 Americans ages 50 to 71 who were participating in the US National Institutes of Health-AARP Diet and Health Study.
Researchers linked the dietary data to death rates over the next 20 to 30 years. Compared with those in the bottom 10% of ultraprocessed food consumption, people who ate the most overly processed food were more likely to die from heart disease or diabetes, according to the study. Unlike other studies, however, researchers found no rise in cancer-related death.
Results may underestimate risk
One key limitation of the study was that the dietary data was gathered only once some 30 years ago, Green said: “It’s difficult to say how dietary habits might have changed between then and now.”
Ultraprocessed food manufacturing has exploded since the mid-1990s, however, with estimates that as nearly 60% of the average American’s daily calories come from ultraprocessed foods. That’s not surprising, considering as much as 70% of the food in any grocery store may be ultraprocessed.
“If anything, we are probably underestimating ultraprocessed food consumption in our study because we’re being very conservative,” Loftfield said. “The intake is likely to have only grown over the years.”
In fact, a study published in May that found similar results — a higher risk of premature death and death from cardiovascular disease in over 100,000 health professionals who ate ultraprocessed foods — accessed ultraprocessed food intake every four years and found consumption doubled between the mid-1980s and 2018.
“For example, the daily intake of packaged savory snacks and dairy-based desserts, such as ice cream, has essentially doubled since the ‘90s,” said the lead author of the May study, Dr. Mingyang Song, associate professor of clinical epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard University’s TH Chan School of Public Health.
Monteiro coined the term ultraprocessed food and created the NOVA food classification system, which looks beyond nutrients to how foods are made. Monteiro was not involved in the study, but several members of the NOVA classification system were coauthors.／Flickr
“In our study, just as in this new one, the positive association was mainly driven by a few subgroups, including processed meat and sugar sweetened or artificially sweetened beverages,” Song said. “However, all categories of ultraprocessed food were associated with increased risk.”
Choosing more minimally processed foods is a one way to limit ultraprocessed foods in one’s diet, Loftfield said.
“We should really be focusing on eating diets that are rich in whole foods,” she said. “And if the food is ultraprocessed, then look to see the levels of sodium and added sugars and try to make the best decision possible using the nutrition facts label.”
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