teagan taylor: And it’s becoming increasingly clear that ultra-processed foods such as candies, packaged soups, nuggets, and sugary cereals are not good for your health. Is it for the sake of it? Or is it a work in progress? Yet another new study points to the latter, showing that the higher the consumption of ultra-processed foods, the higher the risk of dying from all causes.So what’s driving this? Huh? And should the level of processing be included as a food warning label alongside the nutritional information already available? I’m talking to researcher Maria Laura Bonaccio.
Maria Laura Bonaccio: We wanted to compare how these two views of food converge or whether they say different things about health outcomes. , and cause-specific mortality. And I found something interesting.
teagan taylor: Okay, let’s talk about it. Let’s start with the top line. What effect did eating ultra-processed foods have on death from any cause?
Maria Laura Bonaccio: I just checked what others saw. A diet rich in ultra-processed foods, UPF, is associated with an increased risk of death from all causes, but also from cardiovascular disease, particularly ischemic heart disease and cerebrovascular disease.
But so was the conventional approach to looking at food. That means using a dietary score, which basically assesses the nutritional content of a diet, and emphasizes the consumption of fiber, vitamins, and all the good things we know… eating every day. And one way or another, I give negative scores to foods that are high in saturated fat, salt, and so on. A nutritionally inadequate diet is also associated with the risk of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality, as reflected in this score.
But what really happened was that when we analyzed these two aspects of food together, we found that, basically, the risks associated with the traditional way of looking at food were almost entirely, or at least in large part, due to the fact that: was found to be explained by These nutritionally unhealthy foods are also ultra-processed foods.
teagan taylor: Well, some foods are naturally high in saturated fat, but what you’re saying is that the foods that seem to pose the most risk to that measuring stick also tend to be ultra-processed.
Maria Laura Bonaccio: exactly. Most important, therefore, is the fact that the nutritional balance is not ideal or optimal, or that these foods are ultra-processed. Most are explained. Conversely, the opposite is not true.
So even after adjusting for the fact that these foods are also not nutritionally balanced, the risks associated with UPF still exist. food comes from supermarkets and is important to consider when analyzing highly processed foods.Due to the fact that they may be ultra-processed.
So the researchers began to ask themselves, “If there is another explanation, there are actually a lot of explanations. One is that these foods are mostly packaged in plastic-based packaging. contain chemicals that have the ability to migrate from plastics into food. While this is one hypothesis, there are other hypotheses pointing to the fact that these foods, for example, are the result of a long process of breaking down the food matrix. It’s not the whole food you eat, but it’s basically the result of some process that breaks down the food matrix. If you destroy the fiber and then reassemble it, it’s not the same way the original version had the fiber.
A third said these foods are rich in numerous food additives not commonly used in home kitchens, such as the use of artificial sweeteners instead of sugar. , or points out that it has a role in preserving food. They can have a long shelf life and probably all these pathways interact in some way. There are some hypotheses, and nothing excludes others. It may therefore be all that may contribute to what we see in large large population cohorts around the world. , we see these large differences in mortality.
teagan taylor: What are the policy implications of this study?
Maria Laura Bonaccio: Yes, it’s cheap, so yes. Well, the paper we are talking about was conceived within the framework of strong debates at the current European level calling for the adoption of a common front-of-package labeling system by all EU Member States. Currently optional in Europe, but not required. However, the EU would like to choose one mandatory front-line nutrition labeling system. Nutri-Score has gained more traction in recent years. you…
teagan taylor: There are various versions.
Maria Laura Bonaccio: Yes, but you know, the concepts are very similar. Because what you have in Australia is also based on the fact that only nutritional quality is considered. But the point is that we are not against this system, but that we need to supplement this information obtained from nutritional quality assessments. We suggest displaying processing warnings along with nutritional warnings. As you know, beverages sweetened with diet sugar that are very low in calories get an A, green light, but are ultra-processed.
teagan taylor: You say you need to take it in conjunction with nutritional information, plus the level of processing?
Maria Laura Bonaccio: Yes, you know, the double dimension of considering food.
teagan taylor: Maria Laura, thank you for your time.
Maria Laura Bonaccio: thank you very much.
teagan taylor: Dr. Marialaura Bonaccio is in the Epidemiology and Prevention Division of the Neuromed Institute in Italy.
