Ultra-processed foods linked to poor health, premature death

Consumption of ultra-processed foods (UPFs), such as sugar-sweetened beverages, potato chips and packaged biscuits, is associated with adverse health outcomes, with the risk increasing with every 100 grams of ultra-processed foods consumed each day. That’s according to research recently presented at ACC Asia 2025 Together With SCS 36th Annual Scientific Meeting.

UPFs are ready-to-eat-or-heat industrial formulations that are made with ingredients extracted from foods or synthesised in laboratories, with little or no whole foods in their composition. As noted by Dr Xiao Liu from Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, they are characterised by high sugar, high salt and other non-nutritive components, exhibiting low nutritional density yet high caloric content.

“These products may contribute to adverse health outcomes through multiple mechanisms, including but not limited to dysregulation of blood lipid profiles, alterations in gut microbiota composition, promotion of obesity, induction of systemic inflammation, exacerbation of oxidative stress and impairment of insulin sensitivity,” Liu said.

The systematic review included 41 prospective cohort studies spanning the Americas, Europe, Asia and Oceania assessing the association between ultra-processed foods and health outcomes prior to April 2024, involving a total of 8,286,940 adult patients aged 18 years or older from the general population. The research found each additional 100 g/day of UPF consumption was associated with a 14.5% higher risk of hypertension, 5.9% increased risk of cardiovascular events, 1.2% increased risk of cancer, 19.5% higher risk of digestive diseases and 2.6% higher risk of all-cause mortality. Researchers also observed increased risk of obesity/overweight, metabolic syndromes/diabetes and depression/anxiety.

“Emerging evidence suggests a dose-response relationship between ultra-processed food consumption and negative health outcomes — meaning the more ultra-processed foods consumed, the greater the health risk,” Liu said. “Therefore, reducing ultra-processed foods intake, even modestly, may offer measurable health benefits.”

Meanwhile, a separate study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine has shown that premature deaths attributable to UPFs increase significantly according to their share in individuals’ total energy intake. While previous research focused on specific dietary risk factors instead of food patterns, this study modelled data from nationally representative dietary surveys and mortality data from eight countries (Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States) to link dietary patterns, considering the extent and purpose of industrial food processing, to deaths from all causes.

“We first estimated a linear association between the dietary share of UPFs and all-cause mortality, so that each 10% increase in the participation of UPFs in the diet increases the risk of death from all causes by 3%,” explained lead investigator Dr Eduardo Augusto Fernandes Nilson from the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation.

“Then, using the relative risks and the food consumption data for all countries (ranging from 15% of the total energy intake in Colombia to over 50% of the calories in the United States), we built a model that estimated that the percentage of all-cause premature preventable deaths due to the consumption of UPFs can vary: from 4% in countries with lower UPF consumption to almost 14% in countries with the highest UPF consumption. For example, in 2018, 124,000 premature deaths were attributable to the consumption of UPFs in the United States.”

This enabled the researchers to estimate the burden of UPF intake on premature deaths from all causes in different countries, showing that the attributable mortality is significant in all settings and that addressing UPF consumption should be a global public nutrition priority.

“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 colourants, artificial flavours and sweeteners, emulsifiers, and many other additives and processing aids,” Nilson said. “So assessing deaths from all causes associated with UPF consumption allows an overall estimate of the effect of industrial food processing on health.”

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