New report links UPFs to causing harm to every major human organ. Image source: Pixabay
Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) have been linked to causing harm to every major human organ, The Independent wrote citing a new report by global experts.
UPFs – such as ready meals, crisps, sugary snacks and breakfast cereals – have been linked to poor health, including an increased risk of obesity, heart disease, cancer and early death, the 19 November report said.
Globally, UPFs are rapidly replacing fresh food in the diet of children and adults – with large food corporations using a range of marketing tactics to drive consumption, skewer scientific debate and prevent regulation, a review published in The Lancet medical journal on 18 November says.
However, food industry sources challenged some of the claims made in the report, Euractiv wrote.
Industry groups, including European Union (EU) lobby FoodDrinkEurope – which represents major food and beverage giants such as Nestlé, Ferrero, and Coca Cola – dismissed the findings as “sensationalism,” rejecting the UPF label as lacking scientific consensus and being “imprecise and confusing,” the report said.
In The Lancet study, 43 scientists and researchers stated that food firms prioritise profit, leading UPFs to replace fresh options, reduce diet quality and contribute to multiple chronic diseases.
“The key driver of the global rise in UPFs is the growing economic and political power of the UPF industry, and its restructuring of food systems for profitability above all else,” the study authors were quoted as saying.
A review of 104 long-term studies on UPFs conducted for the review found 92 reported greater associated risks of one or more chronic diseases, and early death from all causes.
UPFs often contain high levels of saturated fat, salt, sugar and additives, which leaves less room in people’s diets for more nutritious foods and encourages over-eating, experts say.
In addition, those foods also tended to include additives and ingredients – such as preservatives, emulsifiers and artificial colours and flavours – that were not included when people cooked using fresh food, the report said.
The dietary share of UPFs remained below 25% in countries such as Italy, Cyprus, Greece, Portugal and across Asia, but it was 50% in the USA and the UK, the research said.
For some people, particularly those who are younger, less well off or from disadvantaged areas, a diet comprising as much as 80% UPF is typical, according to the report.
Writing in The Lancet, the global team said that although some countries had brought in rules to reformulate foods and control UPFs, “the global public health response is still nascent, akin to where the tobacco control movement was decades ago”.
Government policy, including in high income countries like the UK, had done little to change the “commercial and structural determinants of the problem”, instead focusing on consumer responsibility, industry partnerships and voluntary self-regulation in industry, such as when companies replaced sugar in some foods with sweeteners, or reduced fat, the researchers added.
The research team claimed that the main barrier to policies to protect health was “industry’s corporate political activities, coordinated trans-nationally through a global network of front groups, multi-stakeholder initiatives, and research partners to counter opposition and block regulation.”
Activities included direct lobbying, “infiltrating government agencies” and filing lawsuits, they added.
According to experts, the “continuing rise of UPFs in human diets is not inevitable” and, while research into their effects continues, this should not delay policies aimed at promoting diets based on whole foods.
One of the study authors, Prof Chris Van Tulleken, from University College London, told a press briefing there had been a “three-decade history of reformulation by the food industry”.
“We took the fat out first, then we took the sugar out. We replaced the sugar with the sweeteners, the fats with gums. These products have been extensively re-formulated and we have seen obesity, particularly obesity in childhood and other rates of diet-related disease persistently go up in line with reformulation,” he added.
“This is not a product level discussion. The entire diet is being ultra-processed.”
Commenting on the Lancet
papers, some experts had called for more, higher quality research into the impact of UPFs, adding that current studies had shown a link with poor health but not a direct cause, The Independent wrote.
Prof Jules Griffin, from the University of Aberdeen, was quoted as saying the authors had shown “a wide range of chronic diseases are associated with increased consumption of ultra-processed foods” but “association may not be causation, as the authors freely admit”.
Kate Halliwell, chief scientific officer at the Food and Drink Federation (FDF), which represents industry, said: “Food and drink manufacturers make a wide range of products, all of which can form part of a balanced diet – from everyday food and drink like frozen peas, wholemeal bread and breakfast cereals, to treats like puddings and confectionary.
“Companies have been making a series of changes over many years to make the food and drink we all buy healthier, in line with government guidelines.”
As a result, FDF-member products contained a third less salt and sugar and a quarter fewer calories than they did in 2015, she added.
The UK’s current dietary advice to eat more fruits, vegetables and fibre and less sugars and salt, was “based on decades of scientific evidence”, she said, and the FDF agreed there was a need for “better quality research to be able to understand if there’s an additional link between food processing and health”.