Ultraprocessed food includes processed meats, ready-to-heat meals (e.g., frozen pizza, chicken nuggets), ready-to-eat breakfast cereals and many more.Getty Images/iStockphoto
Increasingly, research has tied higher intakes of ultraprocessed foods to a heightened risk of several chronic diseases, as well as premature death, including cardiovascular disease-related death.
Now, findings from a new international study add to this mounting evidence base.
According to the researchers, higher consumption of ultraprocessed foods (UPFs) increases the risk of early death – and the more of them you eat, the greater the risk.
The study also found that death rates were highest in countries, like Canada, where people consumed the most UPFs.
Here are key facts about the study, plus why the researchers are urging governments to take action to tackle ultraprocessed foods.
What exactly are ultraprocessed foods?
The Nova food classification system, introduced by researchers from the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil in 2009, categorizes foods based on their level of processing from group one (least processed) to group 4 (most processed).
Ultraprocessed foods are categorized as group 4 foods, defined as formulations of ingredients, typically created by a series of industrial techniques.
They’re made by deconstructing whole foods, altering them and then recombining them with additives not found in home kitchens to make them convenient, attractive and hyperpalatable.
In other words, UPFs contain little, if any, real food.
And they dominate grocery store shelves.
UPFs includes processed meats, ready-to-heat meals (e.g., frozen pizza, chicken nuggets), ready-to-eat breakfast cereals, mass-produced bread, crackers, cookies, pastries, muffin and pancake mixes, ice cream, soft drinks, margarine and many more.
The latest research
For the new study, published April 28 in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, researchers analyzed national diet surveys and mortality data from eight countries with varying levels of UPF consumption.
The countries included Colombia and Brazil (relatively low intake of UPFs), Chile and Mexico (intermediate intake of UPFs) and Australia, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom with high intakes of UPFs.
The years each country’s data was analyzed varied from 2010 to 2018.
The researchers found a linear dose-response relationship between intake of UPF intake and premature death.
For every 10 per cent increase in daily calories consumed from UPFs, the risk of dying prematurely rose by 3 per cent.
This finding, like others, suggests that even a small daily increase in UPF intake has negative health consequences.
Eleven per cent of premature deaths in Canada tied to UPF consumption
The new study was the first to investigate the potential impact of UPF intake on premature deaths in different countries.
In the United States and the United Kingdom, countries in which UPFs contribute more than half of daily calories, it was estimated that reducing UPF intake to zero would have prevented 14 per cent of early deaths.
In Canada, where UPFs make up 44 per cent of our daily calories, the researchers estimated that 11 per cent of premature deaths (7,735) in 2016 were driven by the harms caused by ultraprocessed food consumption.
In contrast, Colombia, a country with a lower intake of UPFs (15 per cent of daily calories), 4 per cent of preventable premature deaths in 2015 were attributed to UPFs.
Keep in mind the study found associations; the findings don’t prove that eating UPFs directly causes early mortality.
As well, to estimate how many premature deaths were attributed to UPF intake, the researchers assumed the minimal risk was to consume none, an impossible task in today’s world. As a result, the number of premature deaths attributed to UPFs may be overestimated.
How the new findings square with previous studies
This certainly isn’t the first study to implicate ultraprocessed foods with health risks.
A 2024 review of 45 meta-analyses involving nearly 10 million people found direct associations between UPF consumption and 32 adverse health outcomes suggesting that UPFs are “harmful to most – perhaps all – body systems.”
The researchers found convincing evidence that a higher intake of UPFs increased the risk of Type 2 diabetes, anxiety, heart disease, stroke and death from cardiovascular disease.
Several aspects of UPFs, including poor nutritional quality, displacement of healthy foods, food additives and physical structure, are thought to cause unfavourable health effects.
A global call to action
Studies indicate a global shift to an increasingly ultraprocessed diet.
The fact that UPF intake starts early in life and often, children and teenagers consume more of their daily calories from UPFs than adults, likely contributes to a higher risk of chronic disease in adulthood.
The study authors urged governments to reshape food systems using regulatory and fiscal policies.
They concluded that “national dietary guidelines of the 21st century must consider the purpose and extent of industrial processing of foods in their recommendations and the body of evidence on ultraprocessed foods and human health.”
Leslie Beck, a Toronto-based private practice dietitian, is director of food and nutrition at Medcan. Follow her on X @LeslieBeckRD
