Study links highly processed foods to risk of premature death | Society

According to one study, eating a lot of highly processed foods is linked to an earlier risk of death.

A team in France worked with more than 44,000 people as part of a 2009 study called NutriNet-Health. They looked at how much of their diet – and their caloric intake – is in "ultra-processed" foods, made in factories with ingredients and industrial additives, such as dried ready meals, cakes and cookies. .

During the seven years of follow-up, 602 deaths were recorded, of which 219 by cancer and 34 by cardiovascular disease. The research, published in the journal Jama Internal Medicine, found that deaths were more likely to occur among those who ate more ultra-processed foods.

The link was clear even after accounting for the greater likelihood of deprivation, smoking, obesity, and low education among those who ate ultra-processed foods, say the researchers.

Ultra-processed foods tend to contain a lot of sugar, salt and saturated fats. France consumes less of these packaged foods and ready meals than many other countries, with about 14% of the diet. More than half of the British diet is made up of ultra-processed foods, the Guardian revealed last year.

Other scientists did not know if this study was linking ultra-processed foods to premature death, but agreed that it was more obvious that the junk food diet was unhealthy.

"The lawsuits against highly processed foods are gaining momentum, and this study adds significantly to a growing body of evidence about the adverse health effects of ultra-processed foods," said Professor Nita Forouhi, of the University of New York. MRC Epidemiology Unit of the University of Cambridge. She added that more evidence was needed, "but we would ignore these results at the risk of public health."

"A key message to remember is that the consumption of highly processed foods reflects social inequities – they are disproportionately consumed by people with lower incomes or education levels, or living alone," said Forouhi. "Such foods are attractive because they tend to be cheaper, very palatable because of their high sugar, salt and saturated fat content, are widely available, highly marketed, ready to eat, and have an expiration date. long, so they last longer. . More needs to be done to address these inequities. "

Other scientists have stated that it was difficult to draw definitive conclusions from the study, in part because of the large size of the category of "ultra-processed" foods, ranging from soups to sachets. chocolate bars.

"This is a large, carefully researched prospective study on healthy middle-aged and elderly French people, in which a statistically significant badociation between death from all causes and a relatively higher uptake d " Ultra-processed foods "has been identified," said Dr. Ian Johnson. , nutrition researcher and researcher emeritus at Quadram Institute Bioscience.

"To put things in perspective, although the risk of dying during the seven-year survey period was about 15% higher among those who consume more of these foods, the basic risk in the The whole group was weak. "