For years science has warned us that ultra-processed foods are a danger due to the effects they have on our body. Something that began as a suspicion about nutritional quality has now become a statistical certainty, since ultra-processed foods not only make you fat, but also directly hit the cardiovascular system.
With figures. A new study carried out by Florida Atlantic University (FAU) and published just a few days ago in The American Journal of Medicine has put an alarming figure on the table: high consumption of these products is linked to a 47% higher risk of suffering from cardiovascular diseases.
And it is not a study that is based on speculation, but the authors have analyzed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey corresponding to the period 2021-2023 with a sample of 4,787 American adults.
How it was done. The methodology is robust because it does not simply look at what participants eat, but the researchers adjusted the results taking into account confounding variables such as age, sex, race, income level and, crucially, smoking.
With all this, and eliminating the effect of tobacco and the socioeconomic situation from the equation, the result was that those who consume greater amounts of ultra-processed foods are almost 50% more likely to develop heart pathologies compared to those who consume less.
It is not an isolated case. If this study were the only one, we might be skeptical. The problem is that it rains in the wet, since the FAU research comes to confirm a trend that we had already seen in previous macro studies, consolidating what in science is called a dose-response relationship: the greater the amount of ultra-processed foods, the greater the damage.
For this we have the French precedent with a famous cohort study NutriNet-Santéwith more than 100,000 participants, which has already shown that an increase of just 10% in the ultra-processed diet is associated with a 12% increase in total cardiovascular risk.
There is more. A meta-analysis published in 2024, which reviewed more than one million participants, found a linear relationship in which for each additional daily serving of ultra-processed foods, the risk of cardiovascular events increases by 2.2%.
And if we still want more evidence, in Australia a 25-year follow-up of almost 40,000 people linked high UPF consumption with a 19% higher cardiovascular mortality.
The new tobacco. The most striking thing about this new research is not only the numbers, but the comparison they make with tobacco and the public health crisis it generated in the 20th century. And while anti-smoking campaigns managed to drastically reduce deaths from lung cancer and heart disease, the food industry has filled shelves with products classified as ultra-processed.
Because? The mechanism behind this 47% elevated risk appears to be related to systemic inflammation and altered lipid metabolism. It must be taken into account that industrial processing generates polluting byproducts such as acrylamide and uses additives that increase the oxidative stress of our body. Basically, the body loses the ability to “cleanse” itself at the cellular level, decreasing antioxidant enzymes and allowing free radicals to damage the inner layer of the vessels, which accelerates the formation of atherosclerotic plaque.
This is combined with a nutritional composition with 5 or more ingredients, rich in added sugars, saturated fats and additives, but poor in fiber and micronutrients. A trio that directly impacts blood pressure and insulin resistance, increasing predisposition to diabetes.
Images | Darko Trajkovic
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