Eating more ultra-processed foods linked to worse health, study finds
Eating more ultra-processed foods is linked to higher health risks, including death, according to a new study published in Family Medicine and Community Health.
Researchers found that consuming higher amounts of ultra-processed foods increased the risk of heart disease, strokes, obesity, diabetes, depression and anxiety, digestive issues, and cancer.
Ultra-processed foods contain “significant amounts of added sugars, salts, fats” and can be hyper-palatable, meaning they are engineered to taste especially appealing, Maya Feller, a registered dietitian, told ABC News.
Examples include packaged snacks, processed meat products, cookies, cakes, sugary drinks, and many ready-to-eat meals.
“Ultra-processed food is one of the major problems in public health,” Dr. Xiao Liu, lead author of the study, a physician at Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hospital and research fellow at Duke-NUS Medical School, told ABC News.
In the study, researchers examined the intake of ultra-processed foods globally, by reviewing over 50 studies that evaluated the diets of nearly 9 million adults worldwide over a timeframe ranging from 2 to 32 years.
The risk of cardiovascular disease, which is the leading cause of death in the United States, was found to increase by 24% after consuming higher amounts of ultra-processed foods.
The more people ate ultra-processed foods, the higher their risk of poor health outcomes. Each additional 100 grams a day was linked to a 14% higher heart risk and an 11% higher blood pressure risk.
Higher consumption of ultra-processed foods was also linked to a higher risk of metabolic diseases, with the risk of diabetes increasing 24% and the risk of obesity increasing 23%.
More than 100 million Americans in the United States are living with obesity and more than 22 million have severe obesity, according to numbers from the CDC. The agency also found that the average American gets over half their daily calories from ultra-processed foods.
Not all processed foods are the same, Feller said, using an apple to explain the difference.
“You have a tree with apples, and the apples on the tree are in their whole form. You take the apple off the tree, and that is a step of processing. You slice the apple. That’s another step of processing. You puree the apple. You haven’t added anything to it. That’s also processing,” she said.
As more ingredients are added, the food becomes more processed, she explained.
Canned vegetables, cheese, and freshly made bread are considered processed because salt, sugar, or oil may have been added to preserve them. Unprocessed or minimally processed foods can include fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables, eggs, milk, beans, grains, meat, and fish that do not have salt, sugar, oils or additives.
When shopping, Feller said consumers can look at ingredient lists to get a better sense of how processed a food is.
“Flip the package over, and if the front says blueberries, then the ingredient list should say blueberries,” she said.
For people trying to limit ultra-processed foods without significantly increasing their grocery bills, frozen and canned foods can still be useful options.
“Go to the freezer section. Look for frozen vegetables, frozen fruits, frozen grains that have nothing added to them,” Feller added.
She also recommended lower-sodium canned foods and affordable staples such as pasta, rice and beans.
For parents trying to help children make healthier choices, Feller noted that strict control may be less realistic than education and modeling healthy habits at home.
“We can’t control what they do when they have at lunch,” she said. “Once they’ve left the house, it’s about education, positive modeling and open conversation.”
She added that family meals give parents more control over the foods children are exposed to at home, while conversations about nutrition can help guide the choices they make on their own.
Feller says that people do not need to eliminate all ultra-processed foods from their diets. Instead, the research points to the potential benefits of reducing overall intake as a more reachable goal.
“Don’t expect that you’re going to swap your pantry over or your refrigerator overnight,” Feller said. “Choose two or three things that you eat on a regular basis that are ultra-processed and think about swapping those out for things in their whole or minimally processed form.”
The researchers noted that people can lower their risk of these health conditions by improving their diets, which include limiting ultra-processed foods and eating more vegetables and fruits.
“In our modern society, our diet and food is maybe not safe… we should eat more vegetables and reduce the ultra-processed food to make us healthier,” said Liu.
Dr. Ashley Thomas is board-certified in internal medicine, board-eligible in occupational and environmental medicine, and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit.
