LIFESTYLE NEWS - A major French study has found for the first time a link between the consumption of ultra-processed foods and a higher risk of death.
The study, which involved monitoring the diets of tens of thousands of French people between 2009 and 2017, found a modest link between increased consumption of ultra-processed foods — characterized as ready-to-eat or -heat formulations — and a heightened mortality risk during that period.
The results were published in JAMA Internal Medicine published by the American Medical Association.
But “we shouldn’t be alarmist, or say that eating a packaged meal gives you a 15-percent higher chance of dying,” cautioned Mathilde Touvier, director of the nutritional epidemiology research team at Paris 13 University, which managed the NutriNet-Sante study along with teams from Inserm, Inra and CNAM.
“It’s another step in our understanding of the link between ultra-processed food and health,” she added.
The relationship between diet and disease is complex and the results of studies are frequently misinterpreted.
Last year, the same French team published a study on organic food and how it related to the risk of cancer.
