Scientists finally reveal true death toll from ultraprocessed foods... and it's worse than anyone feared
Using death records and nutritional data, researchers estimated that 125,000 premature deaths in the US could be blamed on consuming these types of foods in 2017-2018.
For comparison, 73,000 died from fentanyl overdoses in 2022, the latest data shows.
Ultraprocessed food is thought to increase the risk of conditions like diabetes and heart disease due to high levels of saturated fat and sugar, as well as artificial additives.
The study looked into diets in eight countries, including the US and UK.
They then estimated how many of those deaths could be linked to ultraprocessed foods like meats, candy, ice cream and even some salads and breads through nutritional surveys.
The study found one in seven of the nearly 1million premature deaths in the US could be blamed on ultraprocessed foods from 2017 to 2018.
According to the study, ultraprocessed foods also make up more than half of the calories the average American consumes every day - more than any other country in the world.
The above table shows the percentage of calories ultraprocessed foods account for in all countries studied and the number of premature deaths associated with them
And for every 10 percent of extra ultraprocessed food consumed, the risk of early death increases by three percent.
Ultraprocessed foods have long been under scrutiny for containing high levels of saturated fat, salt, sugar and additives like emulsifiers and artificial colors not typically found in home cooking.
As a result, the researchers associated them with 32 chronic diseases, including diabetes, heart disease, obesity and some forms of cancer.
Dr Eduardo Nilson, lead study author from the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Brazil, 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 colorants, artificial flavors and sweeteners, emulsifiers, and many other additives and processing aids.'
He noted because of this, 'assessing deaths from all-causes associated with UPF consumption allows an overall estimate of the effect of industrial food processing on health.'
Independent researchers, however, cautioned the findings do not prove ultraprocessed foods directly lead to an early death and called for additional studies.
The study, published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, calculated the number of premature deaths in the US, UK, Colombia, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Australia and Canada.
From 2017 to 2018, the US experienced 906,795 premature deaths, which is defined as death before a country's average life expectancy. In the US, this is 77 years old.
That was nearly twice the amount of the next closest country, Brazil, which had 556,696.
The team then collected nutritional data from national surveys to calculate how pervasive ultraprocessed foods are in each country's diet.
In the US, ultraprocessed foods were responsible for 54 percent of the average person's consumed calories.
The researchers found 124,107 premature deaths in the US could be blamed on ultraprocessed foods. This is about 14 percent or one in seven.
Meanwhile 17,781 deaths could be linked to these foods in the UK, also totaling about 14 percent.
Colombia, Brazil and Chile, however, attributed ultraprocessed foods to four to six percent of their premature deaths.
The researchers suggested this could be because these foods are less common in these countries. For example, ultraprocessed foods only make up 15 percent of the average calories consumed in Colombia.
In Brazil and Chile, these foods account for 17 and 23 percent of the average resident's diet, respectively.
Studies have linked ultra processed foods to cancer, diabetes, mental health conditions and obesity
The researchers wrote: 'Premature deaths attributable to consumptions of ultraprocessed foods increase significantly according to their share in individuals' total energy intake.
'A high amount of UPF intake can significantly affect health.'
A study published last year in BMJ, for example, found people who consumed the highest amount of ultraprocessed foods had a four percent higher risk of death overall and a nine percent greater risk of dying from a chronic disease other than cancer or heart disease.
Those researchers suggested the increased risk could be due to high amounts of sugar, saturated fat and sodium.
The team behind the new study urged lawmakers worldwide to introduce measures to eliminate ultraprocessed foods from the food supply, such as tighter regulations of food marketing and restrictions on selling them in schools.
There were several limitations to the study, mainly including the findigns showing associations rather than direct causes.
Independent experts also raised concerns about the findings.
Professor Nita Forouhi, professor of health and nutrition at the University of Cambridge, said: 'There are limitations to this paper, including the points the authors themselves raised.
'Nonetheless, evidence on the 'health harms of UPF' are accumulating and this paper does add to that body of evidence, and UPFs are unlikely to be healthful.'
Forouhi emphasized correlation does not mean ultraprocessed foods directly cause death, though observational studies 'are often the best we are going to get realistically.'
'We should not ignore such findings, especially as the current research has reported consistently similar associations in several countries which increases the degree of confidence,' she added.
Professor Kevin McConway, emeritus professor of applied statistics at Open University in England, said: 'The researchers may appear to be making a simple comparison, but in fact it's a lot more complicated than you might think.
Like Forouhi, McConway noted the data is observational and does not prove causation. 'Researchers record what people eat, and then follow them up for a long time and record if and when they died,' he said.
'This all means that it's impossible, for any one study like that, to be sure whether differences in mortality between people who consume different UPF amounts are actually caused by differences in their UPF consumption.
'There are bound to be many other differences between groups who consume different UPF amounts, in terms of other details of their diet, their lifestyle, their economic position, their sex and age, and so on. These differences might be, in part or in whole, the reason for the differences in the risk of early death.'
He added: 'I'm certainly not saying that there is no association between UPF consumption and ill health – just that it's still far from clear whether consumption of just any UPF at all is bad for health, or of what aspect of UPFs might be involved.'
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