HIGHER LEVELS OF ULTRAPROCESSED FOODS MAY SHORTEN YOUR LIFE

Eating higher levels of ultraprocessed food may shorten lifespans by more than 10%, according to a new, unpublished study of over 500,000 people whom researchers followed for nearly three decades.

The risk went up to 15% for men and 14% for women once the data was adjusted, said study lead author Erikka Loftfield, an investigator at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.

Asked about their consumption of 124 foods, people in the top 90th percentile of ultraprocessed food consumption said overly processed drinks topped their list.

“Diet soft drinks were the key contributor to ultraprocessed food consumption. The second one was sugary soft drinks,” Loftfield said. “Beverages are a very important component of the diet and the contribution to ultraprocessed food.”

Refined grains such as ultraprocessed breads and baked goods ranked next in popularity, the study found.

“This is one more large, long-duration cohort study confirming the association between UPF (ultraprocessed food) intake and all-cause mortality, particularly from cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes,” said Carlos Monteiro, emeritus professor of nutrition and public health at Brazil’s University of São Paulo, in an email.

Monteiro coined the term ultraprocessed food and created the NOVA food classification system, which looks beyond nutrients to how foods are made. Monteiro was not involved in the study.

The NOVA classification system sorts foods from unprocessed or minimally processed —whole foods such as fruits and vegetables— to ultraprocessed foods such as deli meat and sausage. Ultraprocessed foods contain ingredients “never or rarely used in kitchens, or classes of additives whose function is to make the final product palatable or more appealing”, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

The list of additives includes preservatives to resist mold and bacteria; emulsifiers to keep incompatible ingredients from separating; artificial colorings and dyes; anti-foaming, bulking, bleaching, gelling and glazing agents; and added or altered sugar, salt and fats designed to make food appetizing.

By Sandee LaMotte, CNN