Adding more ultraprocessed foods to your diet could significantly raise your chances of dying young, a new large study suggests. Researchers looked at health data from over 240,000 people to see how these foods affect health and life expectancy.
Carlos Augusto Monteiro, emeritus professor at the University of São Paulo, led the study. He said, “We evaluated how eating more ultraprocessed foods impacts mortality between ages 30 and 69.”
According to Monteiro, for every 10% increase in calories from ultraprocessed foods, the risk of early death grew by nearly 3%.
Monteiro first introduced the term “ultraprocessed” in 2009 while creating the NOVA food classification system.
NOVA organizes foods into four groups based on how much they are processed.
- Group one includes fresh or lightly processed foods like fruits, vegetables, meat, milk, and eggs.
- Group two contains basic cooking ingredients like oils, salt, and sugar.
- Group three combines groups one and two, featuring foods like canned vegetables and frozen meals.
- Group four covers ultraprocessed foods, which often have little to no real food inside.
These foods are made using cheap, chemically changed ingredients.
Manufacturers add artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives to make them taste better and last longer.
Monteiro warned in a 2024 editorial that the human body may not be able to adapt to these products.
He said that eating them could harm the body depending on how much a person consumes and their health status.
Debate Over the Study’s Conclusions
Not everyone agrees with the study’s findings. Sarah Gallo, senior vice president for product policy at the Consumer Brands Association, raised strong concerns. She argued that criticizing these foods might hurt low-income families who rely on affordable, easy-to-make meals. Gallo said it could even worsen diet quality, raise food safety issues, and deepen health inequalities.
Other research has already connected ultraprocessed foods with serious health problems. A February 2024 study found a 50% higher risk of death from heart disease and mental health conditions. It also showed that a 10% rise in daily ultraprocessed food intake could lead to higher rates of obesity, anxiety, and sleep troubles. That same study found links to type 2 diabetes, depression, and early death.
In May 2024, another study reported that adding 10% more ultraprocessed foods to a diet could speed up cognitive decline and raise stroke risks. Earlier, in 2023, research suggested a higher chance of digestive cancers for heavy consumers of these products.
Today, about 70% of the US food supply is made up of ultraprocessed foods. Children in the United States get almost two-thirds of their daily calories from these foods.
Adults are not far behind, with about 60% of their daily calories coming from ultraprocessed meals. Fang Fang Zhang from Tufts University, who did not work on the new meta-analysis, spoke about this during a CNN interview. She warned that these patterns are worrying and could lead to long-term health problems.
Global Impact and Different Views on the Findings
The research team also explored how ultraprocessed foods affect countries with different eating habits.
Lead author Eduardo Augusto Fernandes Nilson explained that the effects varied across regions. In countries like Colombia and Brazil, where people eat fewer ultraprocessed foods, reducing intake could prevent between 4% and 14% of deaths.
In contrast, the United States has one of the highest ultraprocessed food intakes in the world, at 55%.
The researchers estimated that cutting out ultraprocessed foods could have prevented more than 124,000 US deaths in 2017.
In Brazil and Colombia, removing these foods could have saved around 25,000 and 3,000 lives respectively.
Still, many experts urge caution when interpreting the results. Nerys Astbury from the University of Oxford noted that the study shows a strong link but not direct cause and effect. Astbury stressed that the methods used cannot prove that ultraprocessed foods directly caused the deaths.
Fang Fang Zhang agreed, saying that removing all ultraprocessed foods is unrealistic today. She added that the real number of preventable deaths might be lower than what the study suggests.
Statistician Stephen Burgess from the University of Cambridge also advised caution. He said that factors like a person’s overall health, fitness, and lifestyle might explain some of the findings.
However, Burgess admitted that seeing the same results across different countries strengthens the suspicion that ultraprocessed foods are harmful.