Topics: Food and Drink, Health, News, Science
A new study has found that one specific food group is linked to harm in every major human organ - and global experts have issued a warning.
The scientific research has revealed that ultra-processed foods (UPFs) are a leading cause of the 'chronic disease pandemic' linked to diet.
For those who don't know what we're talking about, UPFs are essentially heavily processed foods that have undergone several processing steps and include additives.
Examples include ice cream, processed meats, crisps, mass-produced bread, some breakfast cereals, biscuits, many ready meals and fizzy drinks.
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This food group also often contain high levels of saturated fat, salt, sugar, which experts say leaves less room in people’s diets for more nutritious foods.
This isn't new though - UPFs have long been linked to poor health, including an increased risk of obesity, heart disease, cancer and early death.
However, now 43 scientists and researchers have joined forces to write in The Lancet medical journal, arguing hat UPFs are 'displacing' fresh foods and meals, worsening diet quality, and are linked to multiple chronic diseases.
They've sounded the alarm and accused food companies of putting 'profitability above all else', including people's health.
The researchers said: "The key driver of the global rise in UPFs is the growing economic and political power of the UPF industry, and its restructuring of food systems for profitability above all else.
"The industry comprises UPF manufacturers at its core, but also a broader network of co-dependent actors who collectively drive the production, marketing and consumption of UPFs."
The global team outlined that while some countries have brought in rules to reformulate foods and control UPFs, 'the global public health response is still nascent, akin to where the tobacco control movement was decades ago'.
Researchers outlined that government policy, including in high income countries like the UK, has done little to change the 'commercial and structural determinants of the problem'.
According to The Guardian, in both the UK and America, more than half the average diet now consists of ultra processed food and for some people who are younger, poorer or from disadvantaged areas, it's not unusual for their diet to be made up of as much as 80 percent UPFs.
Professor Carlos Monteiro, professor of public health nutrition at the University of São Paulo, told the publication that these findings highlight why urgent action is needed.
He said: "The first paper in this Lancet series indicates that ultra-processed foods harm every major organ system in the human body. The evidence strongly suggests that humans are not biologically adapted to consume them."
Meanwhile, one of the authors of the study, Professor Chris Van Tulleken, from University College London, said in a press briefing: "We took the fat out first, then we took the sugar out. We replaced the sugar with the sweeteners, the fats with gums.
"These products have been extensively reformulated and we have seen obesity, particularly obesity in childhood and other rates of diet-related disease persistently go up in line with reformulation.
"This is not a product level discussion. The entire diet is being ultra-processed. And remember that built into the definition of ultra-processed food is its purpose. Its purpose is for profit. And so as long as you’re reformulating, if your purpose is still profit, you’re unlikely to cause positive health outcomes."
