Consuming large amounts of ultra-processed food (UPF) increases the risk of an early death, according to a international study that has reignited calls for a crackdown on UPF.
Each 10% extra intake of UPF, such as bread, cakes and ready meals, increases someone’s risk of dying before they reach 75 by 3%, according to research in countries including the US and England.
UPF is so damaging to health that it is implicated in as many as one in seven of all premature deaths that occur in some countries, according to a paper in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
They are associated with 124,107 early deaths in the US a year and 17,781 deaths every year in England, the review of dietary and mortality data from eight countries found.
For example, US research published last year in the BMJ found that people who consume the most UPF have a 4% higher risk of death overall and a 9% greater risk of dying from something other than cancer or heart disease.
If you don’t want to die of cancer and heart disease, UPF may be be a good choice.
The 4% greater risk of dying… Does that mean if I have a 10% chance of dying by age 70 it becomes a 14% chance or a 10.4% chance? I believe the latter. But that’s a correlation for the people who eat the most UPF. Would have to see how that’s controlled for socioeconomic class and access to healthcare.
It’s astonishing to me that scientists are using such unscientific terms like “ultra processed food”. What is it about these foods that is unhealthy?
It’s like saying “sports are dangerous” while including football and golf in your definition.
I think there’s a bit of a political drive to try to label chronic conditions as “lifestyle” diseases tbh, hence the loose definitions.
Just when I discovered frozen meals… 😟
There are different levels of processed food. A meal cooked, frozen, and shipped can have less risk than a sausage with a stick in it wrapped with a blueberry pancake infused with syrup.
Use your best judgement.
surprised Pikachu face
That hot dog bun and the cupcake with a head next to it are concerning
Each 10% extra intake of UPF, such as bread, cakes and ready meals, increases someone’s risk of dying before they reach 75 by 3%, according to research in countries including the US and England.
Was a bit surprised to see bread there, as it’s been a staple of many cultures’ cuisines for millennia. Did a quick search, and got some clarity in this list - “mass-produced packaged bread” is UPF, not the stuff you make from scratch or perhaps pick up from the local bakery.
A relief, actually, as I just took a loaf of sourdough out of the oven and was waiting for it to be cool enough to slice into. This article took the shine off the experience for a moment there 😅
Yeah the typical American stuff is like 10% sugar, packed with additives like emulsifiers and preservatives, and anything that makes the production processes cheaper and faster, made from bleached flour and has most of the fibre stripped out.
If your bread is made from flour, water, salt and yeast its processed food not UPF.
The supermarket bread that looks and feels like a squeaky toy. Best to avoid that one.
But I like the sound it makes when I eat it :(
Enjoy that sourdough!! I have always wanted to get into baking bread. I will eventually get there someday. The semolina my local bakery makes is 😗🤌 i love bread
Yeah, but it’s delicious and makes me feel good and I don’t want to be 90 anyway. Wait, smokers say that. Shit.
I switched from white bread to 100% whole grain about a decade ago after learning just how much better it was supposed to be. I wonder if it’s actually still pretty awful after reading this
No, it’s not. This refers to pre-packaged bread, e. g. white bread, toast etc. - the stuff you find in a supermarket shelf, full of preservatives and other additives.
Sigh… I get my wholegrain pre-packaged. I guess I’ll die.
If your bread goes moldy in a week, you might be good! (Am not an expert)
It’s a shame that bread and donuts are de facto considered ultra processed foods now. Done right, they totally aren’t.
The pictures also shows french fries and popcorn. In my house those are literally just potatoes and olive oil and popcorn and olive oil respectively, maybe some salt. Bad for me? Maybe, but ultra processed?
I’m rather surprised you are able to pop corn with olive oil. Temp-wise you would hit the smoke point well before the oil was hot enough to pop the kernals, which would be smoky misery in the kitchen.
Not true, I use EVOO and it doesnt smoke. Oil goes in with a couple of kernels on the heat, when they pop remove and add the rest of the kernels. Remove when popping stops.
Maybe its a case of lower heat, more time?
Slicing them to vastly multiply their surface area so that more Maillard reaction can occur, and it’s that Maillard reaction that causes the yummy browning, and causes the proteins and starches to change and become potentially harmful/carcinogenic, plus yes the addition of fatty oil that wasn’t present at all.
A lot of us think of “processing” as like, something a food processor does - reducing and changing the form. But it’s also the chemical changes that occur during cooking as a result of the physical processes. When you look at the before/after of a potato and an equal volume of fries, it’s apparent you’ve drastically changed the base food.
Even done fast they could be better.
The Aerated Baking Company had bread close to as fast and cheap as the modern Chorleywood process, but it isn’t ultra-glutenous. They were also an early feminist icon.
Is there a link to the actual study? The American Journal link seems to be a different one, and that one has a massive list of types of items classified as UPF (check Appendix A, Table 1), so it’s hard to identify what the causal factor(s) are.
Here’s a link to the journal website with a search for ultra-processed food.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/search?qs=ultra-processed+food
The food industry is going to go through the same rebuke that the tobacco industry went through only bigger.
Should go through, but it won’t.
Tobacco? Should have gone through, but it didn’t.
What’s going to be the upf equivalent of vapes?
Wraps.
There’s bread and there’s bread and there’s bread. All are highly processed, given the milling, kneading, fermentation, and baking required for bread, but there’s a huge gap between wonder bread and Russian black bread. I’d be very surprised if the latter is worse for you than bananas, a starch we eat with very little processing
What about smoking, can you make a study on that too? /s
Actually it’s important to do these studies so that you have real proof, but man was the outcome not unexpected.
I knew bad food was bad but this numbers are kind of jarring.
