Ultra-processed foods: largest ever review shows many ill effects on health

https://theconversation.com/ultra-processed-foods-largest-ever-review-shows-many-ill-effects-on-health-how-to-understand-the-evidence-224806

by gnabgib • 2 years ago

76 33 2 years ago

theconversation.com

lencastre• 2 years ago

Superficial and pointless article. Starts off ok but drives no point whatsoever. Just list all the UPFs and known digestive, mental, metabolic, and quality of life implications.

I miss the fat and salt manifestos of the old days. And by miss I mean, those that explain how fat and salt is actually needed and sugar, milk, and wheat not so much.

Paul-Craft3• 2 years ago

I guess you didn't click through to any of the links. Here, let me help you:

* Ultra-processed food exposure and adverse health outcomes: umbrella review of epidemiological meta-analyses (2024): https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/384/bmj-2023-077310.full.pdf

* New study finds poor diet kills more people globally than tobacco and high blood pressure(2019): https://www.healthdata.org/news-events/newsroom/news-release...

* Health effects of dietary risks in 195 countries, 1990–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017 (2019): https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736%2819...

* Processing the evidence to evaluate mechanisms, costs and future solutions (editorial, 2023): https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/nbu.12623

* Speed limits: the effects of industrial food processing and food texture on daily energy intake and eating behaviour in healthy adults (2023): https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00394-023-03202-z

* Ultra-processed foods and food additives in gut health and disease (2024): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41575-024-00893-5

I eagerly await your sparkling insights on the subject.

ta86453• 2 years ago

Taking the time to offer direct links was definitely helpful; but the added snark, detracts:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Tarq0n• 2 years ago

UPF isn't about what nutrients are in the food, it's about what optimizing for manufacturing process and hyper-palatability moderates the effects the food has in our bodies.

mawadev• 2 years ago

I found out that if I don't eat for a day, I feel less gloomy and less exhausted immediately. Over here the ingredients are getting tampered with because of shrinkflation. What used to be healthy suddenly jumps into the UPF category. Feels like avoiding the poison in food is becoming a fulltime job.

ImHereToVote6• 2 years ago

People are far too concerned about feelings. There are serious industry considerations concerning scale and modern manufacturing processes that have scientific backing about their implementation. Industry scientists with PhDs in food safety are responsible for your food. The human obsession with well being is disgusting actually. Trust the science people, please.

estiaan• 2 years ago

I was with you until you said it’s disgusting, how is it disgusting to put an extreme emphasis on health, when it’s been neglected for like all of human history.

Like sure, maybe it doesn’t make sense for most people to put so much focus on something they have little control over, but disgusting? Nah.

Also trusting science is a complete misunderstanding of science. That’s how religion operates.

Edit: Also also, I have some faith in the scientific process, as soon as business and money enters the picture though all trust goes out the window. Corporations do not care what poison they give you, as long as it does not affect their bottom line. Have no doubt that they will ignore their scientists if they can get away with it.

JoeyJoJoJr3• 2 years ago

too concerned about feelings
it’s disgusting

Massive contradiction here.

CaptainMarvel• 2 years ago

You need to look at the real incentives in a system, not pick out what you would like to happen.

Large multi-national profit-focused companies are responsible for your food. (To be more precise, something like 60% of calories consumed by western nations is produced by a small number of international companies... I think my point is clear enough.)

Their overriding goal is to make money. It is not to make healthy food.

They do not comprehensively test new ultra-processed ingredients before using them in foods. This is partly why there is a cycle of "oh no, X is bad for you" and "don't worry, we can fix all of this by using Y" and "oh no, Y is bad for you". The test is live, on everyone, happening right now.

There are no general regulations preventing them to do whatever it takes to reduce the cost of "food", so long as they are not obviously killing people. There are many "slightly bad" side effects of this that will pass unnoticed until investigated with great effort and cost.

That's what this review is.

You are finding out now, after the fact.

Don't misjudge the cause though. It's not the ingredients. It's the system that underpins the entire (food) industry.

goosedragons• 2 years ago

They are but they aren't necessarily concerned with long term effects or how it makes you feel. The priorities are different. Making things shelf stable for longer or taste better doesn't go hand in hand with the healthiest possible option.

addicted2• 2 years ago

The scientists with phds who study nutrition science are pretty clear on what a good diet for healthy living and longevity is.

A mostly plant based Whole Foods diet with small amounts of fish.

There’s a whole lot of nonsense that food industry scientists will try and spread to confuse the issue but the science is pretty clear on this.

Lately we also have a whole class of “influencers” who jump onto the latest trend because they can make hundreds of millions selling supplements.

Finally, there’s also a class of doctors, who are driven heavily by anecdotes and ignore the actual science. Doctors are not scientists people. For one thing, doctors, almost by definition in the minds of most people, deal with people who are sick. For another they deal almost entirely with anecdotes. Unfortunately a lot of doctors let these anecdotes and a few cases of possible genuine anomalies due to allergies, etc drive their opinions about nutrition which isn’t based on actual science.

brianmcc• 2 years ago

Processes for safely and hygienically injecting vast quantities of sugar, salt and fat into "food" != good nutrition.

tsol• 2 years ago

That could be multiple things. Fasting in general will improve mood. I noticed the same thing and began intermittent fasting. Felt great until I ate. Then I learned part of the reason was because I was switching into keto mode while fasting, which also improves mood. So then I switched to the keto diet to try and capture that feeling full time and not just when I'm fasting. In general I feel a lot better. But even though I do keto and intermittent, eating very little processed foods, I still feel best while fasting. There's a lot going on but I think everyone should experiment with fasting. It isn't for everyone definitely, but some people naturally feel better managing their food intake in that way.

notTooFarGone2• 2 years ago

What I absolutely don't get is:

Processed food is mostly junk food. How does this approach account for that? They don't control for junk food (at least not mentioned in the abstract).

Noone would argue that junk food is bad for you and if 90% of UPF is junk food then please spare me the article.

For a good study shouldn't you have an index of "hypothetical healthiness" and have two groups (Proccessed and non-processed) that are the same in "hypothetical healthiness" and see the results?

This shows that junk food == bad and not processed == bad imo.

zaptheimpaler• 2 years ago

The specific factors that cause ultra processed food to be bad are already understood and no one is attempting to claim that there is something inherently wrong with them.

The point of the classification is to give people a simple rule of thumb on what to eat. It’s much easier to understand “avoid processed foods” than the hundred factors that go into a good diet. In other words processed food is a classification system the same way junk food is, but more rigorously defined.

delichon• 2 years ago

A diet that restricts "processed" rather than "ultra processed" food is quite limited, since that includes a large majority of items in the grocery store. IMHO there are many healthy foods in this category, e.g. lentils for vegetarians or ground beef for carnivores. But there are few healthy ultra processed foods, if any.

notTooFarGone2• 2 years ago

But I can still be healthy with ultra processed food. It's doing it a disservice imo and focusing on the entirely wrong things regarding nutrition.

Ultra-processed foods: largest ever review shows many ill effects on health

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