Research has supported the call for revised dietary guidelines and public policies to lessen the disease burden from ultraprocessed foods (UPFs).

The study, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, analysed data from nationally representative dietary surveys and mortality data from eight countries (Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, United Kingdom, and United States). The data revealed that premature deaths attributable to consumption of UPFs increase significantly according to their share in individuals’ total energy intake.

Ultraprocessed foods are ready-to-eat-or-heat industrial formulations that are made with ingredients extracted from foods or synthesised in laboratories, with little or no whole foods in their composition. These have gradually been replacing traditional foods and meals made from fresh and minimally processed ingredients.

Eduardo Augusto Fernandes Nilson, lead investigator of the study, said, "UPFs affect health beyond the individual impact of high content of critical nutrients (sodium, trans fats, and sugar) because of the changes in the foods during industrial processing and the use of artificial ingredients, including colourants, artificial flavours and sweeteners, emulsifiers, and many other additives and processing aids, so assessing deaths from all-causes associated with UPF consumption allows an overall estimate of the effect of industrial food processing on health."

While previous research has focused on specific dietary risk factors instead of food patterns, this study modelled data from nationally representative dietary surveys and mortality data from the eight countries to link dietary patterns, considering the extent and purpose of industrial food processing, to deaths from all causes.

Eduardo said, "We first estimated a linear association between the dietary share of UPFs and all-cause mortality, so that each 10 per cent increase in the participation of UPFs in the diet increases the risk of death from all causes by three per cent. Then, using the relative risks and the food consumption data for all countries (ranging from 15 per cent of the total energy intake in Colombia, to over 50 per cent of the calories in the United States), we built a model that estimated that the percentage of all-cause premature preventable deaths due to the consumption of UPFs can vary from four per cent in countries with lower UPF consumption to almost 14 per cent in countries with the highest UPF consumption."

The high consumption of UPFs has been associated with 32 different diseases, including cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes, some types of cancer, and depression.

For the first time, the study estimated the burden of UPF intake on premature deaths from all-causes in different countries, showing that the attributable mortality is significant in all settings and that addressing UPF consumption should be a global public nutrition priority.

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