Ultra-processed foods like cereal and soda are linked to 32 harmful health effects, according to the largest evidence review up to now.
Worldwide, 1 in 5 people die The cause is believed to be an inappropriate diet, and the role of ultra-processed foods, or UPF, has received a lot of attention in recent years.
UPF was first defined It was founded about 15 years ago to enable researchers to investigate the effects of food processing on health. The new study, called the “Umbrella Review,” looked at nearly 10 million people to compile much of the available data to give a complete picture of how UPF affects our health. We analyzed a number of recent studies that covered this topic.
The results suggest that consuming a large portion of UPF in the diet can lead to poorer health and premature death from a variety of diseases, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and poor mental health. are doing.
Diets containing high percentages of UPF are undoubtedly harmful to health, and new research supports a link to various diseases. But questions remain about the specific mechanisms by which these foods make us sick.
The researchers proposed that some mechanisms For many years. These include reduced nutritional quality; Some UPFs can be high in fat, sugar, and salt, low in fiber, and lacking in essential vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.
Another mechanism is lack of structure and texture, you’ll eat faster, your blood sugar levels will rise, and you’ll be less effective at suppressing your appetite.It is also attracting a lot of attention Focusing on food additives Other chemicals added to food or as contaminants from packaging or the environment.
The quality of the evidence varies
An interesting aspect of the current study is the fact that the strength of the results between studies varies and some correlations are weak. This is probably due in part to the wide range of foods included in the UPF category.
This definition identifies highly processed foods using refined and reconstituted ingredients that may contain additives and chemicals and are unfamiliar to consumers. This includes ice cream, snacks, whole grain bread, processed meats and low-fat spreads. These very different foods, containing very different ingredients and nutrients, will likely have very different effects on our health.
Another important factor to consider is that these studies are large population-level studies, with thousands of people recording their usual dietary intake and health status. The analysis takes into account (or “adjusts for”) a variety of factors that can skew the numbers, such as age, gender, and lifestyle.
However, the results only show a relationship between dietary intake and health. These do not provide direct evidence of the mechanisms involved. New research is urgently needed to understand how and why certain foods cause poor health.
While some direct research is possible, the long-term health effects of consuming high levels of food additives, for example, can be difficult and ethically questionable. However, there is an opportunity here to explore these effects in more detail using existing data. As more studies are published, the amount of data will allow us to focus on different forms of UPF and identify the best and worst UPFs.
Given the huge amount of data included in the overall review, it would be interesting to extract more precise data to help identify which foods to avoid.
It’s time to dig deeper
The UPF category includes a very wide range of foods, and their nutritional content is equally diverse. Commercial whole grain breads are classified as UPF, as are ice cream, donuts, and fried snacks. Therefore, different UPFs are very likely to have a wide range of health effects.
Additionally, studies of the mechanisms of feeding human subjects with specific foods and ingredients in a controlled manner, as well as more detailed statistical analyzes of existing studies, will help determine which UPFs should be avoided, which are safe, and which are beneficial. This should help identify what is there. As part of a healthy, balanced diet.
One thing is for sure: these studies should help provide advice for curbing UPF intake, which is clearly harmful to health. Conversely, we should also aim to identify which aspects of these foods are the most dangerous, so that food manufacturers can eliminate them from our diets. trans fat Several artificial colors.
Many people rely heavily on commercially available processed foods, and in the future there will be a need to ensure that these foods are safe and nutritious, especially for poor and vulnerable groups. there is.
pete wildHonorary Fellow, Biosciences; Quadrum Institute
This article is republished from conversation Under Creative Commons License.read Original work.
