Ultraprocessed foods have long dominated the average American’s diet: They currently account for approximately 60 percent of our daily caloric intake. But it’s only in recent years that evidence has emerged to calculate the effects of this fare on our health — and the accumulated research may finally force government regulators into action.
The latest studies show that our junk-food habit is a major contributor to a variety of chronic diseases. It may even be playing a role in lowering the nation’s average life expectancy.
The results of a review of 14 meta-analyses involving 9.9 million people show that those whose diets contained higher levels of ultraprocessed foods were some 50 percent more likely than those who ate moderate amounts to die from cardiovascular disease. They were also more likely to suffer from type 2 diabetes as well as anxiety and other mental health conditions.
The study, published in the BMJ, goes on to link such dietary choices with an increased risk of all-cause mortality, obesity, depression, and sleep problems.
“The multinational companies that produce ultraprocessed foods are just as, if not more, powerful than tobacco companies were in the last century.”
“The adverse health outcomes associated with ultraprocessed foods may not be fully explained by their nutrient composition and energy density alone but also by physical and chemical properties associated with industrial processing methods, ingredients, and byproducts,” the authors write.
Their findings reinforce the results of another recent commentary, published in the American Journal of Medicine, in which physicians at Florida Atlantic University consider the connection between junk-food consumption and myriad chronic diseases. The “novel ingredients” in these foods — various emulsifiers, maltodextrin, and other additives — are foreign invaders “never before encountered by human physiology.”
They can cause havoc in the gut microbiome, triggering an inflammatory response that promotes disease.
Corresponding author Dawn Harris Sherling, MD, and her colleagues believe that high junk-food consumption may partly explain why life expectancy in the United States has decreased in recent years.
“The multinational companies that produce ultraprocessed foods are just as, if not more, powerful than tobacco companies were in the last century.”
The mounting evidence linking ultraprocessed fare to chronic disease and shortened lifespans mirrors research in the last century that gradually raised public awareness of the health hazards of smoking — and eventually forced the government to mandate warnings on tobacco products and limit their marketing.
The federal dietary-guidelines committee is reportedly considering some response, but Sherling doubts that we’ll see regulatory action anytime soon. “The multinational companies that produce ultraprocessed foods are just as, if not more, powerful than tobacco companies were in the last century,” she says in a press release about the commentary. “And it is unlikely that governments will be able to move quickly on policies that will promote whole foods and discourage the consumption of ultraprocessed foods.”
