It is well known that, for health reasons, industrially prepared meals should rarely be on the menu. However, the trend is to consume them more and more. What can ultra-processed foods do in the body? According to one study, highly processed foods dramatically increase the risk of developing cancer.
Sausages, frozen pizza, instant soup, ice cream and all kinds of sweets… Ultra-processed foods are those that are made with ingredients after an intensive industrial process.
Ultra-processed foods usually contain poor quality refined fats, added sugars and additives. Frequent consumption is associated with various pathological consequences, such as an altered gut microbiota, increased inflammation in the body and, as a result, often with an increased risk of death.
Researchers from Imperial College London and the universities of São Paulo and Lisbon have now tackled the issue in a joint study. As they have shown, ultra-processed foods are probably carcinogenic.
STUDIES LINK ULTRA-PROCESSED FOODS WITH CANCER
The consumption of ultra-processed foods increases in European countries for several reasons:
- The habit of cooking every meal is being lost.
- Work and social relationships lead to eating out.
- Ultra-processed saves time and effort.
- The price of ultra-processed foods is getting cheaper.
- We are surrounded by ultra-processed advertising.
- Dr Kiara Chang, first author of the study, from the School of Public Health at Imperial College London, said: “The average person in the UK consumes more than half of their daily energy intake through ultra-processed foods. This is exceptionally high and worrying.”
- Our bodies may not react the same way to these ultra-processed ingredients and additives as they do to fresh, nutritious minimally processed foods. However, ultra-processed foods are everywhere, this shows that our food environment needs urgent reform to protect the population from ultra-processed foods, explains Kiara Chang.
- The World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations have already recommended restricting ultra-processed foods as part of a healthy and sustainable diet.
INCREASED RISK OF CANCER AND RELATED DEATH
The study is based on long-term health data from around 200,000 adults from the UK Biobank. The researchers determined the subjects’ eating habits and tracked how their health status developed over the course of ten years after admission to the study. The focus was on their overall and specific cancer risk.
The analysis showed that those subjects whose diet consisted mostly of ultra-processed foods had a significantly higher risk of developing cancer.
MORE OVARIAN CANCER
Expressed in numbers, people increase their overall risk of cancer by 2% for every 10% increase in such foods. In the case of female test subjects, a sharp increase (by 19%) in the risk of ovarian cancer was noted.
According to the documentation, ultrapocesados food also worsens the prognosis of cancer. The researchers found that cancer patients had a 6% higher mortality rate if they increased their consumption of ultra-processed foods by 10%. In the case of patients with ovarian cancer, the risk of death increased by up to 30%, and in the case of breast cancer by 16%.
UNPROVEN CAUSAL RELATIONSHIPS
A common problem with nutritional studies is that the actual relationship between cause and effect remains in doubt. After all, it cannot be said with certainty how important dietary habits were for the development of diseases if other factors (for example, smoking, lack of exercise, severe obesity, environmental influences) cannot be ruled out.
Also in this case, one of the authors of the study, Dr. Eszter Vamos, indicates that the research cannot prove causality. More research is needed to confirm the results.
But he emphasizes that “reducing ultra-processed foods in the diet can provide important health benefits.” Therefore, fresh, minimally processed foods need to be made more affordable and presented in a more appealing way to allow low-income consumers to make healthier food choices.
