United States: In the latest research, there are certain ultra-processed foods (UPFs) that, as experts reveal, would shorten a person’s Lifespan, according to a decades-long study.
More about the finding
The study showed that older adults rely highly on “ultra-processed” foods, and they are ten percent more likely to die during the study period, spanning nearly three decades.
The findings were presented at the American Society for Nutrition’s annual meeting in Chicago on Sunday, which adds further that high intakes of ultra-processed foods were more prone to the risk of dying sooner, having underlying diseases such as diabetes or heart disease.
The results have not indicated any case of any death related to cancer, though, as koin.com reported.
How was the study conducted?
There were around 540,000 participants whose ages ranged from 50 to 71. Among them, almost half have died ever since the research began, collecting their self-reported dietary data in the mid-1990s.
For the study purpose, the researchers cited the system called the NOVA classification system in order to group foods into four categories – firstly, unprocessed or minimally processed foods; secondly, processed ingredients (like oils, butter, etc.; thirdly, thirty processed foods (usually foods from the category one that is altered or augmented with ingredients from category 2); and lastly ultra-processed foods, made by industrial processes and with ingredients rarely used by home cooks.
According to the researchers, there are a total of two types of ultra-processed foods that were more “strongly” linked with adverse effects.
What more have the experts stated?
According to the lead author Erikka Loftfield, Ph.D, of the National Cancer Institute, “We observed that highly processed meat and soft drinks were a couple of the subgroups of ultra-processed food most strongly associated with mortality risk and eating a diet low in these foods is already recommended for disease prevention and health promotion,” as koin.com reported.
As Loftfield explains, the UPFs, as defined under NOVA categorization, include both sugary as well as artificially sweetened soft drinks, along with hot dogs, chicken or fish nuggets, and other “reconstituted meat products,” as per the World Health Organization (WHO).
Loftfield also conceded that the study could help to scrutinize subjects’ other unhealthy traits, such as obesity or smoking.
Therefore, it is also shown that even though the participants with such lifestyles are considered to be healthy, reportedly consuming ultra-processed foods in larger quantities would have an increased risk of mortality.