Warning against ultra-processed foods: They cause multiple diseases, including cancer

“The increased risk was modest,” commented Tom Sanders, emeritus professor of nutrition and dietetics at King’s College London, who was not involved in the study. location “CNN”.

For his part, nutrition researcher Ian Johnson said that it is true that the study was not able to prove conclusively that ultra-processed foods are the direct cause of concurrent diseases, as a large amount of other research has shown a link between some ultra-processed foods (UPF) and health damage.

“Taking all other scientific evidence, it is possible that some types of UPF increase the risk of subsequent disease, either because they are directly harmful, or because they take the place of healthy foods such as vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, and olive oil,” Johnson said in a statement. And others.”

While co-author Heinz Friesling, a nutritional and metabolic scientist at the International Agency for Research on Cancer, stressed that the study results are worrying because ultra-processed foods in Europe make up “more than half of our daily food consumption.” A study conducted in the United States in 2019 estimated that about 71% of the food supply may be highly processed.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, ultra-processed foods contain ingredients that are “never or rarely used in kitchens, or classes of additives whose function is to make the final product palatable or more attractive.”

The study, published in The Lancet, collected nutritional information from 266,666 men and women from seven European countries between 1992 and 2000. The participants were followed for 11 years to see who developed various chronic diseases, including cancer.

At the start of the study, each person was asked to recall what they had eaten in the past 12 months, and the researchers classified foods according to the NOVA classification system, which looks beyond nutrients, to how foods are made.

“This approach, especially since food data is up to 30 years old, may make this type of interpretation of historical data using a modern definition vulnerable to error,” he added.

For her part, lead author Reynalda Cordova, a postdoctoral student in pharmaceutical, nutritional and sports sciences at the University of Vienna, said that when ultra-processed foods were examined by subgroups, not all of them seemed to be associated with the development of chronic and concurrent diseases.

“While certain groups, such as animal products, artificially sweetened beverages, and sugar-sweetened beverages, were associated with increased risk, others, such as ultra-processed breads and cereals or alternative plant products, showed no association with risk.”